


Under Covers

by RoseDeVents



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Oral Sex, POV Jemma Simmons, Phone Sex, Undercover Missions, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:39:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 35,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27870122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseDeVents/pseuds/RoseDeVents
Summary: AU Season 2, after episode 2: Agent Morse is reassigned to another HYDRA base the day before Jemma Simmons is outed as a mole in HYDRA, so Director Coulson has to take drastic measures and send the traitorous Grant Ward in to save her. Ward comes up with a cover story to smooth it all over: Jemma is his girlfriend. And they need to convincingly keep up their cover if they want to escape.
Relationships: Jemma Simmons/Grant Ward
Comments: 65
Kudos: 60





	1. Stuck With You

**Author's Note:**

> Hello there, SHIELD fanfic community! I have been lurking here since the series finale, completely blown away by what I’ve been reading. This is my very first fic and I’m super excited to finally share it with you and contribute! 
> 
> I’ve been especially inspired by the Biospecialist writers: shineyma, jdphoenix, SafelyCapricious, the_stargazing_dreamer, starfishdancer, MissMeggie, Elisexyz, etc. I remember thinking during season 1 that Jemma and Grant had chemistry, but then all hell broke loose. Luckily, this community has found all sorts of interesting ways that it could have worked out for those two. I humbly offer my smutty Biospecialist offering for your consideration… I hope you enjoy it. 
> 
> P.S. Not integral to the story, but I was first inspired by the song “Sweetener” by Ariana Grande, and then this fic took on a life of its own and became 30,000+ words. The song to me is the whole idea of “when life gives you lemons…” (Except Deke is not in this, damn, what a missed opportunity!) I ended up making each chapter title an Ariana Grande song name and they tie in a little. (I wasn’t even that big of a fan and kinda am now?) She ended up releasing a new album while I was writing this but I don’t have any of those song titles in here – maybe the sequel?
> 
> TW: This first chapter includes a threat of rape. I apologize.

Jemma positions herself against the firm, leather headboard. She has the down comforter pulled above her belly button and Ward’s head is between her legs under the covers.

She lets out a sigh as she sinks further into the pillows. She palms her breasts over her bra and settles in. Her soft sighs turn into moans and she squirms with pleasure.

“Grant,” she moans. She closes her eyes and leans back all the way, lifting her knees into the air. The comforter moves slightly as he shifts his head.

“Oh, Grant,” she moans again. She starts to pant faster, louder and after a few more minutes she lets herself go, crying out his name one last time before falling onto her back and smiling with bliss. She composes herself and peeks her head under the comforter. Ward pulls her under.

She giggles and puts her lips to his ear. “Was that OK?”

**One week earlier…**

“When we get back, you better have some answers for us,” the interrogator says as he runs his bloated index finger down her cheek. She keeps her lips tight in defiance. He looms over her because she is strapped to a chair, bound so tightly she can barely move.

She tenses and recoils at his touch, and his fingers land in her hair. “Fuck, I just washed my hands,” he says, wiping her blood onto his trousers.

“We might have to get creative with this one,” the guard says with the hint of a smile, sizing her up.

“Oh darn, not again,” the interrogator says with mock annoyance. Jemma furrows her brow, unsure of what they mean by their threat. They turn to the door.

“We can’t help it if our cocks are the only way to get through to them.”

“Yeah, but that would be the third one this week,” the interrogator glances back at her before opening the door and walking out. The guard looks back at her longingly before following him. They shut the door.

Jemma lets out her breath and a sob escapes from the back of her throat. The reality of her situation sinks in. Of course, she knew once her cover was blown that she was going to be taken to a cell and tortured for information. But she didn’t expect these HYDRA agents to speak so cavalierly about coming back later to rape her. There is no civility in HYDRA. She knows that firsthand after the months she’s spent undercover working in the lab.

What she doesn’t know is what they know. They asked her who she was sharing information with, but she wasn’t sure which information they meant. She doesn’t know whether they were able to get anything off of the fish taco wrapper she’d left in the trash for Director Coulson that afternoon, or if there might also be something incriminating on her computer or even back at her flat.

She tried to take in their questions and use deductive reasoning like Agent May taught her. _Don’t react too soon. Find out what they know. Figure out if you can spin it into your cover. Take three men down single-handedly if it comes down to it._ Well, that last bit was something only May could do.

She had to assume at this point that they knew the worst of it. They had hit her plenty but she knew that was merely an introduction to the torture to come. Still, she’s been down here for hours already and still isn’t sure what answers they are seeking from her.

Suddenly, the door bursts open and Grant Ward barges in. Jemma’s eyes widen in shock and her mouth drops open in surprise. 

He looks about the same as he did the last time she saw him, locked in Vault D at the Playground. Well, technically the last time she saw him he was unconscious in the infirmary after trying to kill himself for the third time. But the last time _he_ saw _her_ , he was looking pretty desperate. And those desperate eyes are now staring at her urgently.

“Baby, are you OK?” he asks as he gets down on his knees in front of her, his hands lightly wiping the dried blood off her face.

She stares at him like the madman he is. _Baby? In what world?_

“Oh you don’t have to say anything,” he says, wrapping his arms around her. “I told them what was really going on. The misunderstanding is all cleared up.”

_Misunderstanding?_

“Well don’t just stare at me, untie her!” Ward barks at the aforementioned guard and interrogator who have followed him into the cell.

Jemma curls her lip in disgust when she sees their disappointment at having to let her go. Her face stays that way as she turns to Ward. He’s looking at her like she’s the most important thing in the world and her stomach churns. He stands to give them some room to untie her.

“Thank you for your messages,” Ward says, perhaps trying to fill in the blanks for her. _What messages?_ The coded fast food wrappers she left for Coulson?

“You helped me make a big impression on the guy upstairs,” Ward explains further. “He’s giving us a suite – a very generous welcome back gift.”

Jemma keeps her eyes on him while the guard loosens the restraints and she tries to make her face look blank, but it’s difficult.

“I know you’re mad but can we talk about this when we get to our quarters?” Ward asks, crossing his arms while eyeing the HYDRA agents in the room. “You don’t want to make a scene in front of these gentlemen do you? They were just doing their jobs.”

“Make a scene?” Jemma asks incredulously.

“Uh oh,” the guard mutters under his breath.

“I’ll explain everything, baby,” he says, looking at her pleadingly. “I swear.”

“There ya go,” the guard says.

Jemma stands and tries to flex all her muscles at once to let out the tension.

“Sorry for the mix-up,” the guard says.

She glares at him and Ward takes her by the hand. “It’s all right, we get it,” he says, as he pulls Jemma into his side. She reluctantly wraps an arm around his waist. She still doesn’t know what’s going on but Ward is getting her out of this interrogation room and for that she doesn’t mind playing along for a few minutes.

Ward turns back for a moment and coolly adds, “But if you ever touch her again, I’ll make sure no one finds your bodies.”

Ward guides her out of the room. “Hail HYDRA.”

They walk down a long, narrow hall. Jemma didn’t see it before because she had a bag over her head. After some twists and turns and a flight of stairs, they get back to the atrium of the HYDRA headquarters she’s been working at for three months. Jemma attempts to walk toward the front doors but Ward steels her to the elevator bank.

She glares at him. “Where are you taking me?”

“To our new apartment,” he says enthusiastically. He takes her hand and kisses it. “Whitehall insisted we stay in a suite on base. It’s an honor, really.”

Jemma longs to slap him and make a run for it, but a quick glance around the room allows her to take in the amount of guards – and guns – surrounding her. She wouldn’t make it 10 feet. Not to mention Ward has her hand squeezed so tight, she wouldn’t be able to get loose anyway.

“My … my things,” she stutters, trying to think quickly. “I’ll need to go to my flat and get them.”

“Whitehall already got them,” Ward explains. “They might already be upstairs.”

“That was … thoughtful,” she says, disappointed.

“Yes, now we can just focus on us,” he says.

The elevator dings and the doors open.

“‘Us’?” Jemma scoffs as he pulls her in.

He looks at her apologetically. “Look, I know I’ve been gone a long time and you probably feel like I abandoned you. But I’m here now.”

“Abandon away,” Jemma mutters.

“Hey,” he says, pulling her close. Too close. Her body is flush with his. His beard is tickling her forehead. “I’m here now.”


	2. Rain On Me

Jemma lets her arms dangle and resists the polite urge to return his embrace. She still has no idea what this psychopath is talking about. _Is it possible she has a head injury? Is it possible that he has one?_

The elevator dings and the doors open again on the 22nd floor. Ward grabs her hand and leads her to the door of room 2207. They walk into a fully furnished flat that she would be absolutely giddy to be staying in if it wasn’t in HYDRA’s headquarters. There is a foyer that opens to a large kitchen and dining room, a living room with a giant flat screen TV, and she is assuming there is a bedroom and bathroom down the hallway off the living room.

There are a few boxes in the foyer and when she opens one, she sees one of her sweaters folded neatly inside. _Great, HYDRA packed for her._ They also undoubtedly took inventory of her entire apartment. Even her underthings, she notes, as she opens a small bag full of bras and panties.

“Why don’t you go take a shower?” Ward suggests with a hand on her lower back. She looks up to see a mirror ahead of her and she is even more covered in blood than she suspected. She doesn’t want to follow his orders, but a shower is necessary. She takes the first pieces of clothing she can find and goes down the hallway to the bathroom.

She closes the door and thinks about locking it, but decides not to. Ward could easily pick this lock and anyone else in HYDRA could probably just knock down the door. She lays her clothes on the giant his and hers vanity and sees that this suite is already well equipped with whatever toiletries she would ever need.

She looks in the mirror and takes stock of her injuries. The cuts on her face have stopped bleeding and it doesn’t seem like she needs stitches. As she unbuttons her shirt, she sees a welt above her belly button and grimaces, remembering the blow that likely made it. She can see the shape of the interrogator’s hands on her upper arms, and some other bruises on her legs from the ropes. But all in all, she came out rather unscathed.

She pulls her hair out of her ponytail and runs her hands through it. There are bottles of expensive shampoo and conditioner that she brings with her into the shower, along with three different scented soaps. _Would it be that easy to turn her to the enemy?_ SHIELD rarely had the name brand of anything in their locker rooms. _Would she betray her team for some luxurious toiletries?_

She turns on the water and doesn’t have to wait for it to warm up. She steps into the expensively tiled walk-in shower and realizes there is more than one shower head. She slides the tinted glass door closed and tries out the rainfall one instead. She lets out a moan at the feeling of the warm water falling all around her. _This, she might betray SHIELD for._

She uses the lavender soap to scrub her entire body of the initial layer of blood. While she is reaching for another bar, the door slides open and Ward walks in. Naked.

She yelps and goes to cover herself but he grabs her and puts his hand over her mouth.

“Calm down,” he whispers. “This is the only place we can talk freely.”

She considers biting his hand.

“Coulson sent me,” he says in an even lower whisper.

She can barely hear him over the water. She looks at him searchingly and he slowly removes his hand from her mouth. No reason to scream in the middle of HYDRA headquarters anyway.

He puts his finger to his lips to indicate she stay quiet and she watches as he runs his hands along every seam of the tile in the oversized shower, along the ceiling and over all the hardware. He nods to himself in satisfaction and turns to look at her. “We’re good,” he says.

Her hands are trying to cover her body but Ward is quite unembarrassed to be standing there with his six pack and muscular arms and his, well, enormous penis. Maybe not enormous. She sneaks a peek again and confirms it is, indeed, quite above average. And it’s not even erect. She feels a shiver go down her spine. She shakes herself and looks him dead in the eye.

“Well?” she whispers back finally. “Are you going to explain what the hell is going on?”

“I’m here to rescue you,” Ward says with that signature cockiness that makes her want to slap him. He takes the soap from her and starts lathering up. She watches his hands slide over his washboard abs but she forces herself to look away and consider all the questions she has.

“So far you’ve done a terrible job,” she whispers angrily. She wants to back away from him but she also wants to hear what he has to say for himself.

“Terrible?” he whispers with a smug smile. “I got you out of that interrogation. I wouldn't say ‘terrible.’”

“Yeah and into some other sort of prison,” she says, gesturing at the suite they were in and realizing too late that removing her arms from being strategically placed on her body was allowing Ward to see her fully naked. And he does see. He takes her in, inch by inch. His eyes linger on …

“Stop that!” she scolds him, whacking him on the arm.

“What?” he asks innocently.

“Looking at me while I’m naked.”

“Well, where else am I supposed to look?” he asks incredulously, turning his eyes up to the ceiling as if to indicate that looking anywhere other than directly at her breasts would be ridiculous. “You’re a lot more beat up than I thought. Does it hurt?”

“I’ll be fine,” she dismisses with a wave of her hand. “You’re sure this is the only place we can talk?”

He looks her in the eye. “The whole place is bugged to high heaven,” he whispers. “But the bathroom isn’t so bad. The running water helps.”

“OK then tell me what’s going on!” Jemma demands. She decides to stop feeling ashamed of being naked in front of Grant Ward. She is a biologist, after all, and this is simply human anatomy. So what if his eyes keep going down to her breasts and hers keep falling on anything but his face?

“I probably don’t know the whole story,” Ward whispers. “But Coulson pulled me out of my cell this morning and said your cover was blown and I was the only one who could save you. Apparently he had back up for you but that person was reassigned?”

Jemma shakes her head in confusion. If there was someone else undercover with her, Coulson never said. “So he sent … _you_?” she asks skeptically.

“I’ve been giving them all the intel I’ve had, telling them I want to help the team,” he explains. “Coulson said this could be my way back in. He gave me a little bit of info for Whitehall, and I made my dramatic return to HYDRA about two hours later.”

“And your way to save me was by telling them we’re a couple?” Jemma accuses. She picks up a soap that smells like hibiscus and starts scrubbing again.

“It explained the drops you were leaving for Coulson,” Ward defends. “I told them you were leaving me messages so I could find my way back into HYDRA and they wanted to know why you were taking the risk. ‘For love’ sounded like the only plausible enough reason.”

Ward nudges her away from the showerhead as he rinses himself off, closing his eyes and leaning back into the hot water the same way she did minutes before. She lets him indulge momentarily and then smacks his back to get him to move out of the way so she can do the same.

When she opens her eyes, he’s staring at her, open mouthed. She throws another glare at him and he laughs a strange laugh she never heard on the Bus.

“You forget I’ve barely seen another human over the past six months. Let alone a naked one. Even all covered in bruises. You can’t blame me for looking.”

Jemma rolls her eyes at him and moves on since he is clearly not embarrassed and has yet to show any remorse for being a miscreant. “So what all did you tell them?”

“I told them I’d been captured by SHIELD but escaped when they transported me between bases. I said I found you but was concerned HYDRA wouldn’t accept me back that easily. I dug up some dirt in the meantime so I’d have something to show for myself when I was finally ready to meet Whitehall.”

For a second, Jemma forgot she was standing with Ward in the shower. But here she is. Naked. And there he is. Naked. She shakes her head and makes a point to look Ward in the eye.

“And he welcomed you back with open arms?” Jemma whispers with an edge to her voice. “Just like that?”

“No, not _just like that_ ,” Ward says defensively. “That’s why we’re stuck up here in this apartment.”

“Stuck?” Jemma asks. “I thought you said it was an honor?”

“You think they believed I magically resurfaced on the day my ‘girlfriend,’” Ward makes air quotes, “was brought in for questioning?”

“So that’s why we’re under surveillance?”

“That’s why we’ll be under surveillance for a long time.”

Jemma runs her hands through her wet hair. Her hands are getting pruny from being under the water for so long.

“So, to recap,” she whispers. “You told them you escaped SHIELD. That I was passing information to you – not Coulson – because I’m your girlfriend. And we’re just the most loyal HYDRA agents there ever could be?”

“Basically,” Ward says with a shrug.

“And now we have to pretend to be dating until we can get out of here?”

“Basically,” Ward says with a small smile.

“Bollocks,” Jemma says loudly, wiping her hand over her eyes.

“I know you’re a terrible liar, and at some point you’ll need to explain to me whose bright idea it was to send you undercover ... Just try not to say too much. To anyone. Ever.”

Ward pauses before adding, “And if you can make it look convincing that you wanted to fuck me badly enough to join HYDRA …”

Jemma throws daggers at him with her eyes as she finally steps out from under the water.

“Hey, I don’t like it any more than you do,” he whispers. “But we’re undercover. And sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do.”

“And how long before we can get out of here?”

“I don’t know,” Ward whispers, shaking his head. “I can imagine they’ll let me go on missions – it’d be a waste of my talents to leave me benched for too long – but they’re going to keep you on base as much as possible now that you’re living here. They basically took away your ability to leave without drawing suspicion. It’s leverage to keep both of us in line, probably.”

Jemma looks over at him and considers this new undercover mission she finds herself stuck in. She slowly gets closer to him. “Why would I leave when I have everything I need right here?” Jemma asks seductively, putting a hand on Ward’s chest. She looks up at him with her sexiest eyes and before he can react, she cracks and bursts out laughing.

“I don't think I can do this,” she says, throwing up her hands and laughing until a dreadful thought occurs to her. Her smile fades. “I’m going to die in here.”

“You know … you’re not the same Jemma Simmons I met on the Bus,” Ward whispers in what she assumes is an attempt to be reassuring.

“And you’re not the same Grant Ward,” she replies quickly. “Have I even met the real Grant Ward?”

“Maybe you will now,” he shrugs.

“While you’re pretending to be my loving boyfriend?”

“Hey, I am going to be the best fake boyfriend you’ve ever had.”

“Great,” Jemma says sarcastically. “Anything else or can we get out now?”

“Well, there’s the matter of you looking disgusted any time I touch you,” Ward says bluntly. “Even though you don’t have to call me ‘honey,’ you do need to let me put my arm around you.”

“I’ve considered that,” Jemma concedes, wringing out her hair.

“And?”

“And I think I’m going to have to be comfortable with a lot more than that if this room is under surveillance.”

“Ah, I see what’s happening,” Ward says, shaking his head knowingly with a grin.

“ _What_ is happening?” Jemma asks, rolling her eyes.

“You’ve seen me naked, and now you want me.”

Jemma lets out a frustrated scream at him and turns around.

“It’s all right,” Ward says teasingly, putting a hand on her shoulder. “It happens all the time. That’s why I’m so good at those seduction ops.”

Jemma whips back around to give him a piece of her mind. “Let me be clear, Ward,” she pokes his chiseled chest and gets very close to his face so she can angrily whisper. “Just so you’re not mistaken. You’ve come in here and told me that our lives depend on me pretending to be your girlfriend. So I can put my personal feelings aside and laugh at your jokes, maybe have a snog. But just know that while I am doing that, I will _never_ want you.”

Ward raises his eyebrows as if to ask, “are you done?” and points down to her pelvis locked against his. “Then why are you grinding all up on me like that?”

In her exasperation, Jemma pulls Ward’s face down to hers so she can kiss him until she knows she has left him breathless. She releases him with a smack from their lips pulling apart and she pushes him away. “Yep, I got nothing. Maybe it’s because you tried to _kill me_ –”

Ward pulls her back into his arms and kisses her so passionately she doesn’t remember what she was going to say or why she was so confident about it. He pulls back too soon and looks deep into her eyes. “You caught me off guard the first time.” He smirks at her.

Jemma steps back from him and clears her throat. “Now that it’s established I can do that without vomiting, can we get out of here now?”

“After you,” Ward says quickly, gesturing toward the shower door. He turns off the faucets and she opens the door. As she takes a step out, Ward swats her bum.

She whips around to shout at him but he wraps her so tightly in a fluffy towel that she can’t move.

“God, I missed you,” he says, holding her close and kissing the top of her head.

“You, too,” she mumbles sarcastically from beneath the towel.

He lets her go and dries himself off before wrapping his towel around his waist. He walks to the vanity and she keeps her eyes focused on the shower door.

“I’ll go make us some dinner,” he says as he leaves the bathroom. She finally turns around and wraps her towel under her arms and around her body. She doesn’t know what kind of surveillance is in this bathroom. Cameras? Microphones? Both? It sends a chill down her spine.


	3. Breathin'

Jemma lathers on some expensive body lotion and combs out her hair. She thinks over what Ward told her. He seemed to indicate that while she needed to pretend she was in love with him, it wouldn’t be for very long. Just long enough for her to prove her loyalty and be allowed to leave the base again. She would go back to her job at the HYDRA lab and would come home at night to … Ward. She cringes at the thought.

While she tries to make her hair look decent, she thinks back to the days on the Bus when she nursed a crush on Ward. She tries to think of what endeared him to her then, but those memories are tainted now. She can barely stomach the thought of eating dinner with him. Especially after they’ve just seen each other naked. And kissed. She assumes she’ll have to do that again at some point. People in relationships kiss each other. 

And they sleep in the same bed. _Oh, God._ And they have sex. _Bloody hell._ Maybe she should head back toward that interrogation room and tell them everything.

Ward knocks on the door before he comes in. “Dinner’s ready,” he says, eyeing her in her towel.

“OK,” she says. “Thanks,” she adds.

She dresses quickly and joins him in the kitchen. It smells wonderful. He is plating their chicken and pasta and it looks delicious.

“Hungry?” he asks.

“Starved,” she admits.

“Wine?” he asks, pointing to a couple of glasses.

“Yes, please,” she says, taking the one that is more filled of the two. She takes her plate and heads to the table to devour it.

“So, do we still need to talk?” he asks her seriously when he sits down.

“About?” she asks, before she shoves a huge bite into her mouth. _When did Ward learn how to cook?_

“About all of our months apart?” he asks.

She raises her eyebrows at him as she swallows her bite. She takes her glass of wine into her hand and looks at him thoughtfully.

“I think we settled that in the shower,” she says, throwing him a wink and taking a drink of her wine. _Oh, this must be the expensive stuff, too. HYDRA sure likes to pull out all the stops._

As she puts her glass back down on the table, she sees his entire body has relaxed.

“Twice,” he adds playfully.

“Hmm, you sure I wasn’t faking it?” she asks just as playfully, laying the innuendo on thick. _She could get used to dating Ward if it means insulting his manhood._

He laughs. “You’re not that good of a liar, Jemma,” he says in a low voice.

“Probably not, but that’s why you love me,” she says, cocking her head to the side. She feels like she’s daring him to brake the façade even though she knows he won’t. He’s too good of a spy. He’s going to look at her with those loving eyes for as long as they’re trapped in this suite. And she needs to find a way to do the same.

He takes her hand in his. “I do love you,” he says with the utmost sincerity.

She has to scrunch up her whole face to physically prevent herself from rolling her eyes. “You, too,” she finds herself replying, unable to look him in the eye. 

“And that’s why,” he says, “you’re going to start training with me.”

“Training?”

“Like what I used to do with Skye.”

“I’m a scientist, Ward,” she says, glaring at him. “I’ve barely left the lab since I’ve been here. I don’t need to know how to punch a bag.”

It’s Ward’s turn to roll his eyes at her. “It won’t just be strength training. You’ll need to work on your cardio. Your aim. Maybe some self-defense techniques.”

“And why would I need that? I have you,” she says bitingly.

“No girlfriend of mine is going to rely on me to protect her,” he says, giving her a serious look.

She swallows. He’s probably right. She’s in the heart of HYDRA and she’s not only rusty on everything he just said, she hasn’t even touched a firearm since before he dropped her into the ocean. “Fine,” she concedes.

They finish dinner mostly in silence. Jemma cleans up since Ward cooked, while he looks for something to watch on TV. It feels so domestic, so normal. If she didn’t know any better, she’d almost forget she was in the same room as her sworn enemy and trapped in the organization she was sworn to fight.

When she finishes the dishes, she tells him she is going to bed early. She goes to brush her teeth and spends a long time in the bathroom, even though there’s not much to do after her shower.

She finds her night clothes in her boxes and puts them on before slipping into the unsurprisingly comfy king-sized bed. Ward comes in an hour later and she pretends to be asleep when he snuggles into her side. “Good night,” he whispers. 

…

Jemma wakes up in Ward’s arms and has to pry herself from under him to get out of bed. She tries to make her eyes look lovingly down at his sleeping face but she can’t quite manage it and stalks off to the bathroom instead.

About ten minutes into her morning routine, Ward knocks on the door. “Come in,” she calls to him.

“And I thought I was an early riser,” Ward says as she continues massaging face wash on her cheeks. He goes to his side of the sink – _“his” side, as if they were a normal couple._

“I went to sleep early,” Jemma half explains.

“Ah,” he says, turning to the mirror and tugging at his facial hair. He picks up an electric razor.

“I like the beard,” she says as she turns on the water. “You’re not going to shave it all off are you?”

Ward smirks at her. “Not now that I know you like it.”

Jemma washes the cleanser off her face. She doesn’t mention to him that his beard reminds her that he is a completely different man from the clean-shaven Boy Scout she knew on the Bus. It helps her tell them apart in her mind.

“But at least trim it, you look like a homeless person,” she says as she dries her face.

Ward laughs that same foreign laugh from yesterday. “Who knew you’d have such strong opinions about my facial hair?”

Jemma decides not to follow up with any barbs and instead puts on a moisturizer. It’s going to be a long day if she’s already about to lose her patience.

“Coffee?” she asks him.

“Sure,” he replies, his razor buzzing at his hair.

“Good morning,” he says when he joins her at the coffee maker. He puts his arms around her waist from behind and kisses her neck.

“I haven’t had my coffee yet,” she says as an excuse to pull back.

He waits until she’s taken her first sip. “Now can I kiss you?” he teases.

“Ugh, fine,” she says, hoping her exasperation sounds like a joke.

He wraps his arms around her waist again and she sets her coffee on the counter. She puts her arms around his neck and he leans down. It starts out as a soft peck, but Ward immediately starts increasing that intensity. It feels like he’s testing her limits. His hands start to wander. His tongue explores her mouth. She knows if she relaxes she will actually start to enjoy it so she bites his bottom lip and he releases her.

“Hey!” he says with a laugh, though the look in his eye is more menacing.

“I need to get to the lab,” she says in her defense. “And don’t you need to go to the gym?”

“Well I thought,” he says as he goes to pull her against him again, “I would skip this morning to spend some time with my girlfriend.” His eyes are looking at her lovingly again and she shakes her head.

“No, no, no,” she says a little too quickly, releasing herself from his grasp. “You need to show your face this morning. Show everyone that Grant Ward is back.”

Ward can barely hide his eye roll. “Hmm you’re probably right. You’re so smart, baby.”

Jemma gives him a warning look. “And I need to make up for all the time I lost yesterday during the ‘mix-up.’”

“Well starting tomorrow, you’re coming with me to the gym every morning.”

Jemma goes to the boxes in the foyer that she hasn’t unpacked yet and pulls out a change of clothes. “Sure, whatever,” she says dismissively.

“Promise me you’ll call if anyone gives you trouble,” Ward says.

“Do I have your number?” she asks as she walks toward the bathroom.

“Don’t worry, I put it in your phone,” he says, giving her a smirk.

He put it in her phone. Which means he was looking through her phone. Great. Her entire life is under surveillance now.


	4. Boyfriend

Sunil Bakshi, one of Whitehall’s most trusted agents, had given her a key card to a lab on the 16th floor after their mission to retrieve Donnie Gill. It doesn’t come as a huge surprise when it doesn’t work for her. She was, after all, outed as a mole only yesterday. She checks her email on her phone: it says she has been reassigned back to her old lab.

She sighs, but Kenneth Turgeon said it all before she caught Whitehall’s attention: the higher up you go, the scarier it gets. She’s almost happy to go back to rudimentary biochem and molecular analysis on blind samples, so she doesn’t have to feel responsible for HYDRA’s weapons of mass destruction.

Back on level 10, she checks in with her former boss, Dr. Harold Gordon. He’s old enough to go beyond gray hair to white, and while that may have made him wise it seems to have made him completely stuck in his outdated ways of doing things. He micromanages her the whole morning while she does the kind of work even a first year chem student could do. She understands this is her punishment, but she is already anxious to prove herself again to get out from under Gordon’s gaze.

After lunch, Jemma is starting her analysis on a fresh batch of samples when she hears an obnoxious and raunchy pop song echoing through the lab. She looks around and another lab tech catches her eye.

“Aren’t you going to answer it?” he chides.

“What?” she asks as she peels off her gloves. She races to her desk to see it’s her phone ringing with “BOYFRIEND” on the caller ID.

“Really, Ward?” she asks when she answers.

She hears him crack up over the phone and it echoes through the hallway. She looks out the glass wall and he’s shaking his head at her. She hangs up.

“Very funny,” she says as she walks out of the lab toward him.

“I wish you could have seen your face,” he says, still laughing.

“What are you doing here?” she asks impatiently.

“I wanted to let you know they’re sending me out today.” Jemma only now recognizes he is wearing heavy gear.

“Already?” she asks. Ward shrugs. “OK,” she says disappointedly. “Any idea when you’ll be back?”

He shrugs again and she frowns back at him. She suspects that her safety in HYDRA depends on him and she doesn’t like the idea of him trekking off to who-knows-where at the spur of the moment.

He pulls her into an uncomfortable hug – what with his gear and what with the fact she’d prefer him not touching her – and kisses her on the forehead.

“Be careful,” she says, and she realizes instantly that she actually means it.

After Jemma watches him go, she turns back to see several members of the lab staff openly gawking at her. She thought she could become friendly with her fellow scientists, but that illusion came crashing down yesterday when none of the techs on 16 even paused while she was being forced out of the lab by a group of armed men.

“What?” she asks the nearest tech.

“You’re Grant Ward’s girlfriend?” the female tech asks in awe, clearly impressed by the man, the myth, the legend.

“No,” she says simply, “he’s Jemma Simmons’ boyfriend.” She looks around feeling quite smug. “Now let’s all get back to work, shall we?”

…

Jemma hears the front door open and checks her phone: 2:02 a.m. She hopes Ward is back – a thought she never expected to have.

It was nice to have the place to herself for the night but she has to admit she was worried. As much as she hates it, she needs him to protect her in this horrible place. She also needs him to get her the hell out of here. _And what exactly was his plan to do that? Is she an idiot for trusting that Coulson really sent him in here to help her get out?_

Ward hasn’t come into the room and she starts to panic that maybe it isn’t him. She slips out of bed as quietly as she can and searches the room for something that could be used as a weapon. The closest she comes is a decorative vase she figures she could use to knock out an intruder.

She takes a breath and opens the door slowly. Ward had been reaching for the handle at the same time and they both scream in surprise to find the other in the doorway. She drops the vase and luckily it doesn’t shatter, just bounces onto its side on the carpet.

“Jesus, Jemma!”

“Bloody hell!”

She notices the blood on his face as she tries to slow her rapidly beating heart. “Are you hurt?” she touches his cheek under a shallow laceration.

“I’m fine, you can go back to bed,” he says, brushing her hand off and turning back to the hallway to walk the other way.

“Don’t think for a second I haven’t forgotten what it was like to be your doctor on the Bus,” she admonishes, following him into the kitchen. “You are a terrible patient. And you definitely withhold the nature of your injuries.”

Ward grabs a bottle of water from the fridge and drinks a big gulp. She stares him down across the kitchen island, arms crossed.

“Fine, do we have a first aid kit?” he asks with a sigh.

“We didn’t but I made one up as soon as you left my lab,” Jemma says walking to the bathroom with a triumphant smile. “I knew we would need it.” Ward follows her reluctantly.

He sits down on the stool that was under the bathroom vanity and she cleans the wounds on his face. “Looks like a lot of blood but not much damage,” she says cheerfully.

“That’s what I tried to tell you,” he mutters.

“Shirt off,” she says as she tugs on the hem. They pull it over his head together and she sees the start of bruises, but only minor scrapes. She decides to clean them anyway.

“What were you doing?” she asks him as she uses antiseptic on his back above his shoulder blade.

“I don’t think I’m supposed to talk about it.”

“Why not?” Jemma scoffs. She presses down on his scrape and he twists with the pain. “Oops,” she whispers sarcastically in his ear.

“I just don’t think I’m supposed to,” he grunts.

“Even with your girlfriend?” she asks a bit too mockingly. She walks around him to stand in front of him again.

“Not even with you,” he says with a sigh.

She puts her hand on his bare shoulder. “Now your trousers,” she tells him and his mouth drops but he recovers quickly.

“Why Jemma, was all this a ploy to get me naked?”

“Maybe,” she says a bit too flirtatiously, as a fake girlfriend is wont to do.

He starts to untie his combat boots. 

“HYDRA is a lot more respectful towards its science division than SHIELD ever was,” she says dryly. “I’ll have you know that Dr. Whitehall was starting to include me in quite a few briefings. Things had been progressing well … until that unfortunate ‘mix-up.’”

Ward stands to take off his pants. “Luckily I was here to save the day.” He tugs them down with a cocky grin.

She rolls her eyes and turns her head for a moment. She starts to wonder if maybe it wasn’t Coulson that allowed Ward to walk in that day. Maybe this was all a scheme. A fake relationship with her former crush to incentivize her commitment to the cause. She wouldn’t put it past Whitehall. She wouldn’t put it past Ward either.

“Well?” he asks, snapping her attention back to his almost naked body. He is wearing only boxer briefs now, and they’re painfully snug. He holds up his arms and does a turn so she can properly inspect his entire body, and she realizes that she is taking far too long to do so.

“I’m satisfied,” she says quickly.

“No, you’re not,” he says in a low voice, “but you will be.” He takes her hand and pulls her close, tipping the scales of power back to him. He kisses her earnestly and she is too surprised to resist, too weak-kneed to pull away. It’s him who lets go finally, when her tongue has just started to loosen up.

“C’mon, I need a shower,” he says playfully. Before she knows it, he’s yanked her night shirt over her head, exposing her bare breasts. He starts to tug on her sleep shorts, but she swats at his hand and does it herself. He takes off his boxer briefs and pulls her into the shower.

Her mind is cloudy while he turns on the water but she pushes aside her very miniscule and obviously only biological feelings of desire to get some more answers.

She puts her fingers to her temples. “So how long until you get us out of here? It’s been a whole day now and we’re still naked in the shower!”

“I’m working on it!” he whispers back.

“OK, but What. Is. The. Plan?” she says through gritted teeth.

“The mission I went on – I got a message out to Coulson. I told him you were safe.”

“How did you manage that?”

“I killed a guy and took his phone,” Ward says with a shrug. He picks up a bar of sandalwood soap and starts washing dried blood off his skin.

“Ward!” she whispers, exasperated again.

“Look, it wasn’t easy,” he tries to explain. “They gave me my own strike team. They had me shadowing the commander. I barely had a minute to do anything, and if they would have caught me, I’d already be dead.”

“And why should I believe you?”

“I don’t know… I guess you’ll have to take my word for it.”

“Funny,” Jemma scoffs.

“We have to trust each other if we’re going to get out of here.”

“Trust you?” Jemma’s laugh echoes off the shower walls.

“Hey, I stopped them from torturing you, that doesn’t buy me a few days before you go back to wanting me dead?”

“You owe me much more than that,” she whispers back.

“Ask me anything, I’ll tell you the truth.”

“What is your goal here?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you really want to go back to SHIELD or are you biding your time while you rise the ranks in HYDRA?”

“Truthfully? I don’t know.” He puts down the soap and rinses himself off.

“You … don’t … know?” she asks very slowly, somehow shocked.

He steps out from under the showerhead. “I’m damned if I do, damned if I don’t.” He shrugs. “I only came to HYDRA because of Garrett, and he’s dead. All of the people I cared about in SHIELD hate me, especially the girl I’m in love with. I really do want to get you out, but if I do, SHIELD will probably lock me up and HYDRA will kill me. It’s a lose-lose situation.”

“So your plan is to keep me here as long as possible?” She glares at him.

“No … of course not,” he stammers.

“Then what is your plan?”

“I’m winging it,” he says with a sigh. “For the first time in my life, I’m winging it. OK?”

“It’s not OK! My life is on the line!” she angrily whispers.

“I’m going to keep you safe. I promise.”

“And why should I believe you?”

Ward only looks at her. He might be lying. He might be telling the truth. But he doesn’t have a grand plan to get her out of here, and she’s more than disappointed to hear him admit it. She turns to the shower door to leave.

“Wait,” he says, pulling her back. “I know how that sounded. But for the first time since I’ve met you, I’m not just trying to tell you what I think you want to hear. Doesn’t that count for something?”

“It’s too little, too late,” she whispers sadly. They stare at each other. Finally, he sighs.

“In terms of a plan, I’m just trying to get them to trust us enough to let you leave the building. I’m thinking we can eventually tell them we want to go on a date. And once we’re out of here, we’ll run like hell.”

Jemma keeps staring at him until she says, slowly, “Well, that counts for something.”

“It’s the truth,” he whispers. “I promise that even though we have to fake it out there, in here I will always tell you the truth.”

“Forgive me if I don’t believe you,” she whispers back, and she opens the door and grabs a towel.


	5. Problem

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!

They both have the next day off but Jemma goes into the lab so she doesn’t have to spend any more time with Ward than is necessary. Dr. Gordon comments loudly on her dedication to her work. She knows he was hoping she wouldn’t be there so he could present her findings to Whitehall as his own.

It shouldn’t bother her if he does. She isn’t _really_ working for HYDRA. Coulson told her to get noticed but not to let them know exactly how brilliant she is. Too much attention would bring her up the ranks for more sinister projects that he didn’t think she’d have the stomach for. _That she now knows she doesn’t have the stomach for._ The work Whitehall started having her do on the obelisk only confirmed that. She wishes there was a middle ground at HYDRA between rudimentary lab work and killing-billions-of-people work.

There’s no way to pass along her intel anymore so she really should sit back and relax at this point. Except for the fact that she’s Dr. Jemma Simmons. She never does anything halfway. She’d thought about faking a few test results here and there but she couldn’t do it. Science is sacred to her. Even science for an evil entity that wants to take over the world.

That said, she knows she could have solved the practical application of this antiserum yesterday if Gordon would just leave her be. (Maybe even half a day if Fitz were here.) Since day 1, Gordon’s been second guessing her, pushing her to follow his instincts instead of her own, and looking at her chest when he doesn’t think she sees him. He often interrupts her when she speaks. She figures you don’t rise up the ranks of HYDRA without being a louse and a snake.

“Well Dr. Simmons, I guess it’s back to the drawing board, eh?” he asks, leaning over her shoulder. Her samples didn’t last the night and she was going to have to start her experiment over. Lucky thing she came into the lab today.

“And did you write up that report on sample 764 for Dr. Whitehall yet?” he asks, staring directly at her chest.

“Do you mind if I attend that meeting with you? I’d like to discuss the findings myself.”

“Dr. Whitehall is a very busy man,” Gordon says condescendingly. “He doesn’t indulge _junior_ biologists in his afternoon briefings.”

“Very well, I’ll just go print it out,” Jemma says through gritted teeth.

Gordon leaves her be after that and she manages to restart her experiment, do research on a few compounds and get some paperwork done that she had been putting off. She’s all too aware of the clock and when she’s the last one there at 6, she figures she should go home to her fake boyfriend.

When she walks into their suite, she lets out a frustrated groan. “What is all this?”

Ward has transformed the kitchen and dining room into something out of a romantic movie. There are twinkly lights hanging from the ceiling, a nice table cloth strewn over the industrial kitchen table and candles smattered around the room. He’s made dinner again and it smells delicious, not that she is ready to admit it.

He hands her a glass of wine with a smile, “welcome home.”

“Wow,” is all she can say before she downs half the glass in one gulp.

“You don’t like it?” he teases.

“Ward, you know I’m not into all this romantic stuff.” Or maybe she was? She wasn’t sure. No one had ever done anything this cheesy for her before. But she figures it will save her some trouble if she sets the precedent that she doesn’t enjoy romantic overtures. Even though she fully recognizes Ward is only doing this to protect their covers.

“But you know I am,” he grins, “so indulge me.”

“It’s very sweet,” she says, trying to make the face of a loving girlfriend. He guides her to the kitchen table and takes her bag from her. He hangs it on a hook by the door and joins her at the table.

“You’re not allergic to shellfish are you?” he asks before taking a bite of his food.

“No, thank goodness,” she says. “This looks wonderful. Thank you.”

“It’s not all I have planned,” he says mischievously.

“Should I be worried?” she asks, taking another big sip of her wine.

“Not at all,” he says simply.

“Sorry I’m such a grump, I had kind of a bad day at work,” she says, trying to say something for the cameras that will indicate why she wasn’t thrilled at the sight of Ward’s romantic surprise.

“Tell me about it,” he says, overly interested.

“One of my experiments got ruined overnight, so I had to start from scratch.”

“Oh, that sucks,” he says, putting a big bite in his mouth. He raises his eyebrows to tell her to go on.

She isn’t sure whether she can actually tell the truth about her bad day. She weighs the options. They’ll know if she is lying about her work. The only other thing she can think of is to tell Ward about Gordon. Would she get in trouble for talking badly about her boss? She supposes that is something normal to do when you’re in a relationship, and decides to finally let out her frustrations.

“My boss is also a total wanker,” she blurts out. Ward laughs as she does an impression of Dr. Gordon. He gets outraged and possessive when she tells him about Gordon staring at her chest. When she tells him about Gordon taking credit for her work, he surprises her.

“But you’re Dr. Jemma Simmons,” he says encouragingly. His confidence in her makes her smile. “Why are you letting this guy take credit for your ideas?”

She shrugs. “It’s normal for a person in his position to get all the recognition. He also carries the weight of any failures.”

“I’ve never seen you fail,” Ward says with a laugh.

“Of course I do!” she says sheepishly.

“Jemma, you’re in HYDRA now. You don’t need to be polite to this guy or boost his ego. He should be recognizing how lucky he is to work with you.”

She blushes. “I’m just a junior biochemist here.”

“You should be the running that lab,” Ward says matter-of-factly.

“I’m not sure I have the experience …”

“Who had two PhDs at the age of 17?”

She laughs.

“You don’t have to play nice anymore,” he says with a shrug. “Fuck this guy Gordon.”

“Yeah,” Jemma says thoughtfully. “Maybe …”

“You’re Jemma fucking Simmons!” he says again, encouragingly. “Sorry, I mean _Dr._ Jemma fucking Simmons!” She laughs. “You can do anything you set your mind to. I’ve seen you; it’s incredible.”

She blushes again and he smiles at her. She sips her wine and considers whether she would actually take career advice from Grant Ward. Then she sees a flash across his face.

“What is it?” she asks, seeing his mood change.

“I just remembered someone else called you incredible recently,” he says slowly. “Ever worked with Sunil Bakshi?”

“Yes, we went on a mission to retrieve Donnie Gill, of all people. Remember him?”

“From the SHIELD Academy?” Ward asks.

“That’s the one,” she nods and then frowns, remembering the outcome of the mission. “It didn’t go well. I’d prefer not to talk about it.” He gives her a knowing look, and she wonders if he was involved with SHIELD’s operation on the ship that same day.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “But this Bakshi seems to think pretty highly of you anyway.”

“Oh? What did he say?”

Ward’s eyes go dark and he responds coolly, “He said a lot of things.”

“Grant Ward, are you jealous?” she teases, trying to lighten the mood.

He grimaces and tightens his jaw. “I don’t want you working with him. I don’t like some of the things he was saying.”

Jemma is alarmed by Ward’s tone of voice. “I might not have a choice.”

“Still, I think you should stay away from him if you can.”

She nods, confused by the way the conversation turned cryptic. “Thanks for dinner,” she says, sipping her wine. “It really was delicious.”

“I’m just happy to be eating real food again,” he says with a slight smile.

She eyes him over her glass. She was a witness to his captivity for months before she went undercover. She didn’t feel bad for him at the time, but finding herself caged now – even a gilded one – she is starting to feel a sort of empathy for him.

“And how are you doing?” she finds herself asking. “After being…”

“Trapped in a tiny room for months?”

She nods, but he doesn’t elaborate so she questions him further. “Are you having any PTSD?”

“Nothing I can’t handle,” he dismisses.

“Oh right, because you’re Grant _fucking_ Ward, what’s a little torture to phase you?”

They share a small smile. He hesitates before speaking, maybe wondering how much he wants to admit in front of the cameras. “It wasn’t the kind of torture that HYDRA doles out, but it was still ... torture.”

“What was it like?” she prods for him to go on.

“I guess it was like …” he grimaces, and she can tell he doesn’t want to rehash it, so it surprises her when he keeps talking “Like being in a fishbowl. People can tap on the glass but you can’t do anything about it.”

“And how did you handle it?” she asks, taking her last swig of wine.

“Poorly,” he says, laughing. “I deluded myself. A lot. I kept thinking I could get them to change their minds about me.”

“You mean Skye?”

“Yeah,” he says softly, before hardening. “But I didn’t give up any information that wasn’t permissible to share. They didn’t break me. I just let them think they did.”

“Of course not, you’re Grant fucking Ward,” she says with a laugh, trying to re-lighten the mood.

“And it’s nothing that a little of that top-shelf whiskey won’t fix,” he says, smiling and pointing to the liquor cabinet. “Are you ready for your surprise?” He stands up from the table and she follows suit.

She sighs. “Do I want to know?”

He takes her by the hand and leads her to the living room. He lifts a blanket off of the coffee table to reveal the game Scrabble underneath.

“Ready for a rematch?” he asks.

She can’t help but smile. “Oh you mean from the 20 times I’ve absolutely annihilated you? And yes, that has a haitch (h) in the middle.”

He rolls his eyes. “You’re never going to let me live that down are you?”

“Depends,” she says sitting down on the couch to set up the game. “You might embarrass yourself even more tonight.”

…

When they walk into the gym the next morning, it feels like everyone’s eyes are on them. Ward nods his head to a few of the guys here and there. There are a few women training, but it’s obvious Jemma doesn’t have even half the muscle mass of anyone in the room.

“’Sup Ward?” an extremely jacked, tattooed and frankly scary man asks, walking up to them.

“Graves, I heard you were here!” Ward says excitedly as they fist bump.

“And I heard about this lady friend of yours,” Graves says, cocking his head toward Jemma.

“Her name is Jemma Simmons,” she says, sticking her hand out to shake his.

“Jason Graves,” he says, taking her hand and eyeing her up and down.

“ _Dr._ Jemma Simmons,” Ward elaborates. Jemma beams at him despite herself. 

“Oh, is that why you look so … frail,” Graves says. Jemma glares at him.

“Trust me, Graves, you don’t want to insult my girlfriend,” Ward warns.

“Chill man,” Graves laughs. “Last time I talked to you, you were going on about the two badass Asian chicks you were working on. You didn’t mention anything about a doctor.”

Jemma shifts her glare to Ward. “Oh he didn’t? How interesting …”

“Exactly,” Ward explains quickly. “I was working them. Jemma was … different.”

“As fun as this trip down memory lane is,” Jemma says, rolling her eyes. “Are we going to actually do something down here? I have to be at the lab in an hour.”

“Good to see you, man,” Graves says, giving Ward a tentative smile before going back to his weights.

“Baby, don’t be mad,” Ward says, getting close to her and running his hands down her arms.

“Can we do some target practice now?” she asks him, raising an eyebrow.

Ward smirks. “Maybe another day. First things first, basic self-defense.”

“Oh goody,” she groans.

…

When she gets to the lab, her shoulder is bothering her but she feels exhilarated after picking up some moves that Ward probably should have considered she was going to use on him at some point.

With the confidence boost of feeling like a total badass, she decides today’s as good as any to start doing things her way instead of following Dr. Gordon’s lead. By 3, she has found the solution for the antiserum that her lab has been working on for weeks and brings the report directly to Whitehall.

“I’m impressed, Dr. Simmons,” Whitehall tells her, staring creepily from above his glasses from behind his desk.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Bakshi and I were very disappointed to hear about the incident a few days ago. Do you know how rare it is to be given a second chance in HYDRA?” It sounds like a threat. “Your pal Turgeon wasn’t so lucky.”

Jemma swallows but her mouth is dry. She framed Turgeon a few hours before she was caught herself. Whitehall is implying that Turgeon was executed before that matter could be cleared up. And it was all her fault. She tries to remain calm. “I’m grateful, sir,” she manages to spit out.

He examines her carefully. “A mind is a terrible thing to waste and I don’t intend to waste your talents further. I’m going to give you your own lab this time.” Whitehall smiles at her. She raises her eyebrows but tries not to show any more of a reaction. “Dr. Gordon will be your assistant.”

She isn’t able to hide her smile.


	6. Bad Idea

She walks in the door to their suite triumphantly that evening and finds herself itching to tell Ward her news. Even though this is all just make believe – if not a dangerous game – and even though she’ll be leaving HYDRA as soon as physically possible, today went … well. She smiles again thinking about the look on Dr. Gordon’s face when she told him he’d been reassigned – as her lab assistant. 

“Ward!” she calls. She checks the fridge for some wine to celebrate and pulls out a bottle of champagne. “Ward?” she calls out again. 

“I’m waiting for you to find me,” he calls out playfully. She puts the champagne on the counter and goes into the bedroom, inexplicably filled with dread. 

Ward has set up another romantic display. More candles, more mood lighting. He’s stripped the comforter off the bed. 

“What is this?” she snaps. 

He takes her hand and leads her to the bed. “You’ve been working hard, I thought I would help you relax.”

“Oh … um … Ward,” she says uncomfortably. 

“A massage,” he says. “Just a massage,” he adds quietly. 

“Oh,” she says, completely surprised. “That’s … kind of you.” 

“Take off your shirt,” he says. He turns away to give her a moment of privacy and she takes off her shirt, leaving her bra and trousers on. She lays flat on her chest and rests her head on her forearms. 

Ward pulls her hair to the side and delicately unlatches her bra and lowers her straps. Her body freezes and before she can protest, he rubs massage oil on her neck and shoulders. 

Her body tingles where he touches her. “That feels good,” she says.

“I’ve barely even started,” he laughs.

“Oh.” 

He uses his strong hands to work out the knots in her shoulders before working his way down her back. The tension eases out of her muscles. 

“That feels really good,” she says. 

“How’s your shoulder?” he asks. 

She hadn’t told him it was bothering her, but of course he noticed. “A little sore ...” He works his fingers on her tightened muscles and she can barely hold back a moan. He starts working harder until her shoulder makes a satisfying “pop” noise.

“Better?”

“Yes,” she says breathlessly. 

When he’s done, the body oil feels a little sticky on her skin. She tells him she needs to take a shower before dinner. 

Once she’s under the water, she continues to feel her body relax. Or maybe it was the massage Ward gave her. She thinks about what his strong fingers would be doing to her if they were really together. Would he have stopped so soon? Or would he have kept going until she was -? _Wait, no, stop thinking about that._

But she is feeling turned on both by these thoughts and the way Ward rubbed her body for the past 30 minutes, and her mind wants to linger on the fantasy for just another moment. _Of Ward’s nimble fingers slipping between her thighs._ She starts to mimic her thoughts with her own hand when the shower door opens. 

“What are you doing?” she shouts at Ward, who is sliding in beside her. 

His cheeks go pink, but he doesn’t leave. “I thought you needed to talk to me!” he whispers quickly. 

“What made you think that?”

“You said you needed to take a shower.”

“Yes, and that’s all I needed to do.”

“OK!”

“OK!”

He looks at her for a second, still not leaving. “I mean, but while we’re both in here …”

“Ward!”

“We can talk about the mission,” he whispers. “Jeez. Get your mind out of the gutter, Simmons.” 

“You should be calling me Jemma, by the way,” she says in a huff, looking for something to nitpick. 

“Then start calling me Grant.”

“Fine, I will,” she snaps. “Grant.”

“Great,” he snaps back. “Jemma.”

“And can you cut out all this romantic nonsense? I mean really, filling the room with candles is a little more than cliché.” 

“Well for one, if you were really my girlfriend, I would treat you like a fucking queen,” he argues. “Secondly, I want them to think we are that sort of couple who does these sorts of things. It’ll help us get out of here sooner. Not that you’re helping. You could try doing one nice thing for me, by the way.” 

She lets out a frustrated sigh.

“And what’s gotten you so tense anyway?” he asks her, picking up a bar of soap since he’s already in there, getting splashed. “You seemed so relaxed a minute ago. That was kind of the point of me being your personal masseur.” 

“Well, I was hoping to get a little _privacy_ ,” she says slowly, emphasizing the word and hoping he gets her drift. “And was just about to … before you barged in.”

“Just about to … what?” he asks with a teasing smile.

“Relax a little more …” She knows he knows what she’s saying. She’s not going to blurt out that she was about to masturbate before he walked in. Which is a perfectly natural and healthy thing to do. 

“Then all by all means, Jemma, go ahead,” he laughs. “You can multi-task right?”

She glares at him and sweeps her eyes up and down his body. “The moment’s passed. I couldn’t possibly get turned on again if I tried.”

“Oh, so you were turned on?” he asks cocking an eyebrow. 

She shakes her head, probably unconvincingly by the bemused look on his face. Then she turns away, closes her eyes and rinses out the conditioner that has started to harden in her hair. 

“So?” she asks him when she’s done. 

“So what?” he asks. 

“Did you have something to talk to me about or are you just trying to annoy me?”

“We’re actually right on topic: sex.”

“Sex? What about sex?”

“You, me, doing it,” he says bluntly. 

“Are you insane?” she asks in a loud voice. 

“Only if it’s insane to want to have sex with my girlfriend,” he says a little too loudly back. 

“Shut up,” she says, shushing him with her fingers over his mouth. He laughs but his face gets serious. 

“Look, just to be real, there’s no way anyone is buying that we’re in love if we’re not also … _making love_.”

She scrunches up her entire face in disgust. “Ew, why’d you have to say it like that?” 

“I thought it would make it sound better.”

“It didn’t. It sounded repulsive.”

“Well, whatever you want to call it. I think we at least need to start faking it for the cameras.”

“How?” 

“You know, just do whatever you did when you had sex with Fitz,” he says with a big grin.

“What are you talking about?” she whispers angrily. “I never had sex with Fitz!”

“Fake an or-ga-sm,” Ward says, exaggerating each symbol. 

Jemma slaps his arm in outrage. 

“Or we could do a BDSM kind of thing? If you’re into that.”

“Ward!”

“Jemma,” he scolds her. 

“Ugh, I mean Grant!” she says, raising above a whisper again. “I’m a terrible liar; of course I’ve never faked an orgasm!”

Ward puts his head in his hands and then looks back at her, laughing. She starts to laugh at the absurdity as well. Soon they are in a fit of giggles.

“I’m so going to die in here,” Jemma says wryly after her last chuckle. 

“I mean, you’ve had a pretty good run if you’ve never had to fake one.”

“Why did you say that about poor Fitz?” she pouts. 

“Because I just can’t imagine him getting you to come the way I know I could.” 

Jemma blushes at that, though she should be smacking him again. 

“You haven’t mentioned him yet,” he pries. “Not even once. Did something happen?”

“Other than you dropping us out of a plane, causing him serious brain damage?”

“I’m sorry,” he says quickly. “I know I’ve already given you a million excuses, but I didn’t think about what could happen to you. I was a coward.” She looks away while he keeps explaining himself. “After all we went though, I couldn’t just shoot you and watch you bleed out. I wanted to give you guys a fighting chance. But I never imagined there was something worse I could do to you when I dropped the pod.”

“Worse than dying?” she scoffs. 

“Yes, I can imagine brain damage is worse than dying. Especially for a guy like Fitz.”

She sighs, looking into Ward’s earnest eyes. She hasn’t been able to talk to anyone about Fitz since she went undercover. That was kind of the point. But when she lets herself think about him, she misses him desperately. She wants to talk about it, explain it to someone. 

“I was making him worse,” she finally says. “That’s why I had to leave SHIELD. Give him some space to recover.” 

Her eyes start to well up. She tries so hard to block out her Fitz thoughts with everything else going on. She shifts her focus back to the problem of the moment instead of dwelling on other upsetting things. “Well that and … sewing you back up again and again.”

She looks down at Ward’s wrist and lifts his hand to get a closer look. 

“I wasn’t really going to do it,” he says slowly. “Kill myself.”

“Didn’t look that way to me,” she says, tracing the outline of his scar. 

“I just wanted Coulson to stop seeing me as a threat.”

“And Skye?”

“What about Skye?”

“You didn’t think about what you were doing to her?” she asks softly. 

Ward sighs. “Now you’ve killed the mood for me, too,” he says jokingly. 

“I thought you were going to be honest with me in here?” 

He stops making eye contact with her and clears his throat. “Well … honestly … she broke my heart.” 

“You broke hers first,” she whispers softly. 

“I tried … everything I could think of to get her to forgive me. To find a way to make her understand why I did what I did. By the time I left, I finally realized there was nothing I could ever do. I broke things between us. And it will never be fixed.”

Jemma is trying to resist feeling bad for the psychopath who terrorized her friend Skye. 

“And truthfully, I’ve barely thought about her since I’ve been on this mission,” Ward says sadly. “Maybe I was just holding on because I wanted to get out of that cell. But there’s only so many times you can hear someone you love tell you they don’t love you back.”

For almost a full minute, the only sound is the shower running. “That’s why I can’t be around Fitz,” she finally whispers. 

“What do you mean?” 

“It’s not important. What you were saying before?” she asks distractedly, rubbing her temples, “… about faking intercourse?”

“Well, we have two options when we go out to the bedroom,” Ward says with a sigh. “Either you learn how to fake it or you let me go down on you for real so you won’t have to.” He smiles at her deviously.

Jemma’s mind spins and did the water just got hotter in the shower or was it just her? Ward is looking down at her chest and she follows his gaze. Her nipples are hard. Was this really the first time that had happened in front of him? _It doesn’t mean anything, it’s simply biology running its course._

Ward shakes himself out of his stupor. “So, what’ll it be?” he asks.


	7. Side to Side

Twenty minutes later, Jemma is positioning herself against the firm, leather headboard. She has the down comforter pulled above her belly button and Ward’s head is between her legs under the covers. She practically drank the entire bottle of champagne in preparation for what is about to happen.

She lets out a sigh as she sinks further into the pillows. She palms her breasts over her bra and settles in. The idea is to make it look like Ward is going down on her, but he’s not even touching her. It is so incredibly awkward that she wants to get it over with as quickly as possible. Her soft sighs turn into moans and she squirms with pleasure.

“Grant,” she moans. She closes her eyes and leans back all the way, lifting her knees into the air. The comforter moves slightly as he shifts his head to make it look like he’s gotten closer to her. 

“Oh, Grant,” she moans again. She starts to pant faster, louder and after a few more awkward minutes she lets herself go, crying out his name one last time before falling onto her back and smiling with bliss. She composes herself and peeks her head under the comforter. Ward pulls her under.

She giggles and puts her lips to his ear. “Was that OK?”

He pulls her close so his lips are against her other ear and his body is pressed against hers. It doesn’t take her long to feel him hard against her. “What do you think?” he asks huskily.

She goes to pull away but he tugs her back to whisper something else.

“Your panties are soaked, you sure you don’t want to …”

“It’s just biology, Grant,” she cuts him off, pulling off the covers so she can flee to the bathroom.

She goes about her nightly routine while thinking of him in the next room, nursing his hard on. Or maybe he’s stroking himself, thinking about what it would feel like inside of her, to hear her moan his name for real. Her cheeks flush thinking about it. She thought she was tipsy, but maybe she is drunk.

“It’s just biology,” she mutters to the mirror. She puts the water on cold as she rinses her face.

Ward walks in a few minutes later and she doesn’t dare look at him below the waist. She can faintly see that he is wearing pajama pants.

“Good night, darling,” she says, fake smiling at him through the mirror as she rushes out.

“Good night.”

She gets in bed and her mind is racing with competing thoughts about Ward. How he apologized for what he did to her and Fitz. How he talked about his broken heart and why Skye would never love him. How her skin tingled when he whispered in her ear. How he is very obviously trying to manipulate her.

…

The alarm clock goes off at 5:30 a.m. but Ward is already up when Jemma goes to shut it off. She has a slight headache from the champagne but she knows Ward won’t let it slide. She forces herself out of bed.

The gym is not as crowded today so they have any easy time securing a mat to start sparring. Ward shows her a few moves and makes her practice them over and over until her arms start to hurt.

He goes to the weights next and she gets on the treadmill for a run. She watches him across the room, face twisting as he pushes his limits, and letting out indelicate grunts as he does it. She laughs to herself.

“He’s such a spaz,” someone next to her says.

“What?” she asks, snapping her head to the left.

“You don’t remember me?” the man on the treadmill next to her asks. He lowers his speed from a sprint to a jog.

“Graves, right?” she asks, lowering her speed from a jog to a walk.

“And you’re Jemma Simmons,” he pants. “ _Dr._ Jemma Simmons, I mean.”

She nods with a small smile.

“You know, your boyfriend is going easy on you when you’re sparring,” he mansplains. “You should really get an outside trainer. Someone who isn’t afraid to ride you a little harder.”

She turns her head back toward Ward, who is across the room. _Is this guy hitting on her?_ She slows her treadmill down even further, suddenly feeling very uncomfortable.

Graves turns off his machine completely and leans over the side rail to be closer to her. “And when I say someone, I mean me.” He looks her up and down as her eyes fall to the floor, unsure of how to respond. “Would you be interested in that? Having someone ride you … harder?”

Suddenly Ward’s hand is on Graves’ shoulder and he is yanking him away.

“What the fuck, man?” Graves shouts.

“Get away from her,” Ward says gruffly, putting himself protectively between her and Graves.

Jemma turns her treadmill off but doesn’t move.

“We were just talking!” Graves tries to cover. 

“Shut up,” Ward tells him, pushing him away. He turns back to Jemma. “Was he bothering you?”

She keeps eye contact with Ward so she doesn’t have to look at Graves. “Only a little,” she manages to squeak out.

Ward’s eyes go dark and he turns back toward his friend. “You thought you could move in on my girl while I was in the same room?” He laughs cruelly before throwing his fist into Graves’ nose.

Graves cries out in pain. “Ow! What the fuck?”

“If you go near her again, I’ll kill you,” Ward says before turning back to her. He takes her by the hand and pulls her out of the gym.

They don’t speak until they get back to their suite. She follows him into the bathroom and pulls out her first aid kit to tend to his hand. It doesn’t look so bad; unlike her, Ward knows how to throw a punch.

“Are you OK?” Ward asks finally.

“It’s fine, it wasn’t a big deal,” Jemma shrugs. “You didn’t have to threaten him like that.”

“It’s what I do. I’d do anything to protect the people I care about. Before, it was Garrett and you saw firsthand what anything could mean – how far I’d go.”

“Oh, I remember,” she eyes him seriously.

“Well, Garrett is dead now and the only person I have left is you. So whether you like it or not, I’m going to protect you. At any cost.”

She looks at him, taken aback. She knows he’s only saying this because of the surveillance. She knows she probably ranks very low on the list of things he gives a damn about. But she can’t help playing into his emotion; she yanks his mouth to hers and kisses him full on.

He pulls her closer, hands on her hips, and lifts her easily onto the vanity. She tilts her head back slightly and his tongue enters her mouth. There’s a passion there and she’s caught up. Her hands are free to move over his biceps and onto his very tight and squeezable bum. He is standing between her legs and he presses into her so she can feel his hard cock. She gasps and he bites her lip.

“I’m so sweaty,” he says in a low voice as he backs away. “Shower?”

She looks at him for a moment, breathless, before her head clears and snaps back to reality. “No, I’m good,” she says, knowing what will happen if she goes in there with him. “You go on ahead.”

“Your loss,” he says. He’s his cocky self but she reads him well enough now to know he is disappointed. He strips off his shirt and gives her a lingering look before he turns toward the shower.

She washes her face and uses a washcloth to tap cool water along her body. She manages to leave before he gets out and as she makes her way to the lab, she thinks about what he might have been doing in there and if he found a release. 

…

Things are much better in the lab with her in charge. Dr. Gordon glares at her all day but he does everything she asks. He’s probably biding his time to poison her, but by the time he works up the nerve she’ll be gone. She hopes.

She reminds herself it’s only been a week since her interrogation. These things take time. And there are some perks in the meantime … like fancy shampoo. Gourmet food. Hot water. And … nope, those are the only things.

She gets a text around lunchtime from Ward: “Going out on a raid. Might not be back till tomorrow. Love you.”

“Love you too! Be careful!” She writes back. She knows their texts are monitored, though she wishes he would have come to say goodbye like he did before. It certainly helped her nerves to see him off.

_This seems rushed, perhaps unplanned. And what if he encounters her team out there? Is he going to shoot at them? Are they going to shoot at him?_

“Are you all right, Dr. Simmons?” Gordon asks her.

“Quite,” she tells him tersely. “I’m thinking about sample 764 again. What if we …” She buries herself in her work for the afternoon so she doesn’t have a chance to think about Ward again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where we sync up with what was at the beginning Chapter 1 :) Sorry if I tricked you!


	8. Sweetener

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is mostly fun fluff! This chapter title was also the working title of the whole story, since it was inspired by "Sweetener" by Ariana Grande. When it came time to name the chapters, it seemed to fit here the best.

She goes “home” on time for once and is surprised to see the cabinets stocked with groceries. Someone must have serviced their flat – it’s been cleaned, too. _Wouldn’t want to give her an excuse to leave the base._ She takes stock of the gourmet ingredients and decides to try her hand at cooking something a little special. She opens a bottle of red wine and rolls up her sleeves.

By the time she’s done with dinner, she’s downed half the bottle. She eats in front of the TV and finds a rerun of “Grey’s Anatomy.” It’s not the most accurate depiction of the sciences, but she hasn’t seen it in ages and trying to piece together the storylines almost makes her forget that she isn’t allowed to leave the building.

She downs her wine when the episode ends and she realizes she’s drank the entire bottle. But then there’s another episode starting and the main character Meredith Grey is drinking wine so she opens another bottle because _wine not?_ She giggles to herself.

When Cristina and Meredith start dancing it out at the end of the episode, she stands up and wiggles a bit too. “Dance it out,” she mumbles to herself as she takes another swig of wine. The episode ends and she turns off the TV. She goes through the music on her phone and finds Ward downloaded an entire pop song playlist so he could use the songs for increasingly embarrassing ringtones. It’s the only thing on her phone so she hits play and prances across the living room. She jumps around, barely managing to keep her wine in the glass as she shakes out the frustration and fear she’s been feeling.

“What are you doing?” she hears as the front door closes.

“Grant!” she says joyfully, running up to give him a hug. “Hi!”

“Are you … dancing?”

He puts his bag on the counter and watches her make a fool of herself as she twirls in front of him like a ballerina.

“You’re drunk,” Ward says with a laugh.

“C’mon, Grant. Dance it out with me!”

“I’m good,” he says, turning to head to the bathroom to clean up.

“Ugh, you’re just like Fitz,” she says. “Fitz … Oh, I miss Fitz.” She puts her hand on her cheek and stops moving. “And Fitz hates me now, did you know that?”

Ward turns around. “That’s ridiculous, Jemma.”

“He does! You didn’t see it but he does. He loved me and now he hates me.”

“Oh come on,” he tries to comfort her. “You’re FitzSimmons …”

“Were! We were FitzSimmons. And then we sank to the bottom of the ocean and now we’re nothing. There’s no FitzSimmons anymore.” She says it with an air of melancholy, though with a definite slur. “Only WardSimmons now. And that just doesn’t sound as good, Grant.” She shakes her head in disappointment. “That doesn’t sound as good at all.”

He raises his eyebrows at her. “WardSimmons?”

“Not like FitzSimmons and SkyeWard. Skye ... Oh, I miss Skye,” she says longingly, then her eyes go wide and she gives him a knowing smile. “But probably not as much as you miss, Skye.” At that she gives him an over-exaggerated wink. “I bet you wish she was here instead of me …” 

“Ohhhhh-kay,” he says, obviously trying to shut her up. “You wanted me to dance with you?”

“Oh, please! Yes, let’s,” she says. She goes back into the living room and spins around. “You need wine though, too. Or tequila. Wine or tequila for dancing it out.”

“Dancing it out?” he asks her as he reluctantly pours himself a glass of wine.

“Yeah, like Mer and Cristina do,” she explains to his utter confusion. “Which one do you want to be: Mer or Cristina?”

“Um, neither?” he says, downing his glass in one gulp. He fills it again and steps toward her reluctantly.

“Dance!” she yells at him as the song picks up.

He sways to the music, hesitantly at first but then starts to let loose just a little and spins her. They laugh and sway and sip on their wine. 

“This is my favorite Grant Ward so far,” she says to him appreciatively.

“And this might be my favorite Jemma Simmons,” he replies, bemused.

The next song starts and it’s a little slower. He pulls her close to him and they sway together.

Then the song picks up and gets a little dirty. Jemma finds her cheeks flush as Ward grinds against her. She takes a sip of wine and doesn’t look him in the eye as their hips swing together. When the chorus starts again, he flips her around so her back is to his chest and syncs their hips to sway with the beat. She feels a flush go all the way down to her toes.

She reaches her arm back and puts her hand in his hair. He leans down and kisses her neck, lightly at first, then sucking on a spot that makes her start to tremble in his arms. She goes to grab his thigh and her wine glass shatters to the floor.

“Shit,” she says, looking down at the mess.

“It’s OK,” he says. He reaches for her phone and stops the music. “You should go to bed, I’ll clean it up.”

She watches him take out a dustpan and sweep up the glass. “You know what, Grant Ward,” she says dreamily, “you’re pretty sweet sometimes.” He doesn’t respond as she stalks off to bed and she’s asleep within minutes.

…

Ward opens the shower door to find Jemma sitting on the floor under the hot water.

“How do you feel?” he grimaces.

She looks up at him, miserable. “How does Meredith Grey do it?”

He laughs. “I still don’t know who that is but I’ll get you some aspirin.” He comes back and pulls the door closed behind him. He isn’t wearing a shirt but his pajama pants start to get damp from the spray.

“Jemma, you can’t get drunk while we’re here,” he whisper-scolds. “You scared me last night. I didn’t know what was going to come out of your mouth next.”

“What did I say again?” she asks, rubbing her temples.

“You were talking about Fitz … and Skye.”

“Oh,” she says. “Right.”

“Does Fitz really hate you?” he asks tentatively.

She looks up at him and tries to stand gracefully. “He did before I left, and he’s probably going to hate me more now …”

“Why?” he asks, as he helps her up, averting his eyes from her naked body. For once.

“Because he gave me the last puff of air and I didn’t tell him I loved him back.”

“Puff of air?”

“At the bottom of the ocean.”

“Oh,” he says. “I’m –”

“Yeah, yeah you’re ‘sorry,’” she interrupts.

“Well I am ... Now.” ~~~~

For almost a minute, the only sound is the shower running. “That’s why I can’t be around Fitz,” she finally whispers. “Like you said about Skye, things are broken now and they can never be fixed.”

“I did that. It’s my fault.”

“It is,” she whispers back, holding eye contact.

“I saw him before they let me go,” he admits. “It … broke my heart. Of everything I’ve done, that was the one thing I felt truly ashamed about.”

She can only stare at him. She doesn’t know how to respond to that. How can she believe that after all of the things he’s done? How can that be the only thing he regrets?

“I’m skipping training today,” she says as she opens the door and grabs a towel. “I still feel like I’m going to be sick.”


	9. Into You

Jemma makes it through the day despite her hangover and just as she’s about to clock out, she gets a text from Ward that he’s being sent out again. This time, he doesn’t give her an indication on how long he’ll be gone. 

He doesn’t come back the next night. Or the next. He doesn’t answer her panicked texts and when she asks around about him, she’s told by almost everyone that his mission was classified and shouldn’t be discussed. She forces herself to keep training in the gym – staying at least 50 feet from Graves at all times – and makes small talk with a few of the people Ward is friendly with. She is able to piece together that no one from his team has come back either, so she thinks of that as a good sign.

Nonetheless, she starts working on a back-up plan. Perhaps the only reason she was let go from the interrogation room was because of Ward’s standing in HYDRA. Or perhaps she was their leverage against him. Maybe a combination. She knows her promotion was crucial; Whitehall is more confident in her now. If she keeps it up, he will trust her again. And then she might finally be allowed to leave the base.

Not that she has dared to try. Ward made it clear they needed to read between the lines, but no one has actually said she isn’t allowed to leave. She wonders what would happen if she tried. _Would they lock her up again? Would they confine her to her room? Or is it possible they wouldn’t even notice?_ Despite herself, she has somehow decided to trust Ward in this. She’ll need him to pull off her escape. From there, she can only hope he lets her go. 

Finally, on the fourth night, she comes home to find Ward there. “Oh thank goodness,” she says, relieved, and she finds herself rushing into his arms. “Are you hurt? Where have you been?”

“I’m fine,” he says, holding her close. She lingers, clutching him tight.

“So I guess you missed me?” he asks with a laugh when she finally lets go.

She sighs. “Maybe a little.”

He grabs her and picks her up by the hips. She wraps her arms and legs around him reflexively. “In that case, we are going straight to bed.”

“Grant …” she says warningly.

“Baby, I had to walk through the snow _and_ the desert to get back here to you. We are not leaving the bed tonight.”

Her heart starts to beat rapidly and she can feel it down to her core. She kisses his neck so she can whisper, “what the hell are you doing?”

He throws her down on the bed and falls on top of her so he can whisper back: “Follow my lead.” He kisses her firmly on the mouth and then stands up again.

He rips off his clothes, but he leaves on his boxer briefs. His gaze rests on her and she stares up at him from the bed, mesmerized. Nobody has ever looked at her like they wanted her this badly. _Or fake wanted her. Whatever._

He slows down as he unzips her boots, taking them each off carefully. She unzips her trousers and he yanks them off roughly. The pulse she feels between her thighs indicates her biology is betraying her again. She takes off her shirt, but leaves her underwear on to follow Ward’s lead. 

As he climbs on top of her, he kisses up her thighs to her stomach, then up to her breasts. He bites her nipple through her bra and she thinks about pushing him away but it feels too good. He makes his way up her neck to her mouth and thrusts his tongue inside.

It’s no surprise to her that she is turned on, but she feels him hard against her and she feels butterflies in her stomach knowing it’s because of her – again. _No, not butterflies. They can’t be butterflies._ Probably more like nerves because she obviously hates this man and does not want him touching her the way he is. _Only she does._ And she wants much more of it. _Bloody hell._

He pulls the covers over her head and pulls her close to whisper in her ear. “Now we just have to make it look good.”

“Right,” she says breathlessly.

He nestles his body between her thighs and thrusts into the mattress. That’s not where she wants him. Their heads are out of the covers and she lets out a dispassionate moan while she snaps her eyes shut, not wanting to look at him.

He’s moving aggressively so the headboard is rattling against the wall, probably to hide the fact that their skin is not smacking together the way it should be. His kisses up and down her neck send chills down her spine.

“Oh, Grant,” she whispers.

“Oh, Jemma, Jemma, Jemma” he moans into her ear.

The way he says it is so tender, like she is a goddess and he is worshipping at her altar. It stirs something inside of her that she doesn’t want to feel, so she resolves to get this over with as soon as possible. 

“Right there,” she says after he shifts slightly. “Yes, yes!” she huffs out.

He makes his way along her jaw to kiss her lips and she moans into his mouth, their tongues lashing against each other as he pretends to increase his rhythm against her. His hand timidly fondles her breast.

“I’m going to come,” she says breathlessly.

“Already?”

“Yeah,” she breathes out. He puts his hands under the covers but leaves it on the mattress between them and pretends to rub her clit.

“Oh!” she shouts. “Oh yes, Grant, yes!”

“Come for me, Jemma,” he says huskily.

She exaggerates an orgasm and as soon as she’s done, he does the same. “Oh baby,” he moans as his whole face scrunches in pleasure. He falls on top of her. She can feel his cock on her leg, still hard.

He buries his head in her neck and whispers, “Good job. I almost believed it.” He kisses her neck and rolls off of her and onto his side.

“That was amazing,” she pants out breathlessly, though she’s still wet between her legs and is now aching for release.

“I missed you so much,” he says, pulling her close. She can feel his cock against her soaking wet panties, and with every slight movement it pushes against her clit.

“I wasn’t sure if you were coming back,” she says, letting her vulnerability show.

“I’ll always come back to you, Jemma Simmons,” he says, kissing her deeply. “You want to cuddle for a bit?”

She scoffs. “Of course not. I need to take a shower.” With his fully erect cock still nudging against her, she needs to find some relief in the shower where the cameras won’t catch her.

“Do you want me to …?” he asks hopefully.

“No, you should get some rest,” she says with a smile. He’s probably annoyed that she beat him to it and she almost feels bad she’s leaving him in bed again with a raging hard on. _Almost._

She practically runs to the bathroom and into the shower. There’s a detachable showerhead in there and she’s been wanting to try it. She puts the setting on as high as it can go against her clit while the rainfall showerhead drowns out her muffled moans.

She thinks about what it would have felt like if Ward had been inside her instead of coldly humping the mattress. She sticks two fingers in her pussy, but the way she is imagining his size, she needs to at least try it with three. The water hits her clit and she imagines him massaging her there, just like he did so well on her back. It doesn’t take her long to come and when she does, she finds herself muttering his name again and again as if he were there with her.

_Oh no._


	10. Dangerous Woman

When she wakes up in the morning, Ward is already gone. There’s a note next to her phone that says “Have a great day, beautiful.”

She smiles despite herself. She’s only doing that because of the cameras. It’s instinct – self preservation and all. Or maybe she’s just excited she’s off the hook for training. She sighs as she gets out of bed, knowing that isn’t why.

As she gets ready for the day she tries to think through all the reasons why she hates Grant Ward. Only, for everything she lists, her brain comes up with an excuse for him. He kidnapped Skye. _To save his mentor._ He tried to kill her and Fitz. _He thought they would find a way out._ He killed Koenig. _There’s no excuse for that, and who’s to say Ward didn’t cross off more innocent people who were in the way?_ OK, she’s thinking clearly again.

She stays late in the lab that night, so late that he is already asleep when she gets home. She moves silently so he doesn’t wake up.

In the morning, she stays in bed late so she is scrambling to get ready for the gym and insists her shoulder is bothering her too much to spar, so he goes to his weights while she gets on the treadmill.

But she can’t help herself from watching the beads of sweat slide down his arms. Or admiring his ass when he squats. She turns up the treadmill so she is running faster and faster, anything to clear her mind. She slips out of the gym without telling him so she can get ready for work without him.

He texts her in the middle of the day to ask how her day is going and she doesn’t respond. She looks at her samples and thinks about the way she sees him laugh now; it’s so different from when they were on the Bus. She starts writing a report and thinks about his rough hands sliding down her body. Dr. Gordon is explaining his methodology on an experiment when she starts thinking about Ward’s tongue in her mouth.

He’s all she can think about and she doesn’t want to face him and risk what might happen next. She stays in the lab late again. Luckily, her promotion means more paperwork and a good excuse not to go home at a normal hour.

She slips in late and is glad to see he’s asleep again. She leaves a note on his phone to say she needs to sleep in and won’t be training with him in the morning. When she wakes up at 6:30, his side of the bed is long cold and she applauds herself that she managed to avoid him so easily.

After a couple of minutes in the shower, the door opens and Ward comes in to join her.

“Get out,” she snaps automatically.

“What’s your problem?” he asks, keeping his distance.

“I just want to be alone,” she says.

“You’ve been avoiding me for days. Ever since …”

“No, I haven’t,” she interrupts coolly. “I’ve been busy.”

He glares at her. “Do you want to get out of here or do you want die?” he whispers harshly.

“Of course I want to get out of here!” she angrily whispers back.

“Well going back to hating me in the open isn’t going to make that happen any faster,” he argues. “So what’s the problem? How can I fix it?”

“Like I said, I’ve been busy.”

“You’ve been avoiding me, admit it.”

“I have not!”

“You have,” Ward says, rolling his eyes. “Tell me why. I thought we were working together. I thought you wanted to get out of here?”

“I want you to have sex with you!” she blurts out angrily. _Oh, bloody hell._ It just slipped out – the reality she’s been avoiding for the past few days. She catches his eye to let him know she doesn’t mean faking it again.

“Finally,” he spits out, just as angry. “You’re taking this seriously.”

They stare each other down. She turns off the water. “All right then, let’s do it.” She raises her eyebrow in a challenge, seeing if he’ll call her bluff.

He gets close to her and puts his hands on her cheeks, pulling her in for a deep kiss. He kisses along her jawline to her ear and whispers, “you’re sure?”

“Yes,” she whispers back. “I want you to fuck me so hard that I forget where I am and who I am. And who you are.”

He seems a little insulted but he shakes it off easily with a joke. “You’re really not the twinkly lights and candles type are you?”

“No, she died at the bottom of the ocean.” She says it matter-of-factly and he seems much more taken aback by this comment. There’s a hurt behind his eyes, so she pulls him out of the shower and tosses him a towel so she doesn’t have to see it.

“Ready?” she asks him once they’ve dried off.

“Straight to business, that’s the Simmons I remember,” he says half-heartedly.

She pulls him close and rocks her body against him while she kisses him with every ounce of frustration she’s been feeling over the past few days. She runs her tongue along his teeth. She bites at his lip.

As his hands explore her body, she slides her hand along his cock until he’s fully hard. He moans into her mouth and takes that as permission to slip his hand between her legs. His nimble fingers feel just as amazing on her clit as she imagined. Well, obviously better. Much better.

“C’mon,” she whispers.

He follows her to the bed and she lays back. He climbs on top of her, unsure of himself. It’s not sexy at all. It’s not what she wanted. He kisses her tentatively, not with any of that burning berserker rage she knows is still somewhere deep inside of him. She gets worried she is going to dry up.

“Wait, I don’t want to look at you,” she says, pulling back from his kiss. She flips her body over and sticks her ass in the air while on all fours, facing the window. “Like this.”

“Jemma,” he growls. _There’s the Grant Ward she was expecting._

A sheet lays protectively over their naked bodies. He runs his hands over her bum and wastes no time entering her from behind. She cries out from the sensation and realizes it will be obvious to anyone who heard her that she was faking before, but she doesn’t care. If the point is to let them know he is fucking her, she is not going to hold back.

“You’re so sexy, Jemma,” he says, running his hands over her after she lets out another unbridled moan.

“You don’t have to be so gentle, Grant,” she says, giving only a quick glance back at him. She digs her fingers into the mattress as he thrusts harder into her. She can feel every inch of his cock moving in and out.

“Like that?” he asks.

“Oh, yes, yes!” she cries out.

He’s slamming into her ruthlessly now and it’s exactly what she asked for. Her mind is going blank and they’re both making sounds she’s never heard before. Their skin is slapping against each other obscenely – another noise that would have been noticeably absent before.

His hand reaches around to rub her clit and before she knows it, she’s coming. It’s been so long since she’s felt this release that it falls over her in waves until she’s breathless. She wants to sink into the bed, but he’s still going. He somehow manages to flip her onto her back without pulling out.

“You can close your eyes,” he says gruffly as he keeps pounding into her. Instead she opens them wide, to see what he looks like while he’s fucking her. He has a look of concentration and she realizes it’s not on her. For some reason, she wants it to be on her.

His hands are on the bed around her so she pulls one onto her breasts. His eyes widen and she nods, so he starts playing with them, teasing her nipples. He leans down to take one into his mouth and sucks. She arches her back and he thrusts even deeper inside of her.

“Oh, Grant,” she moans out. She feels him start to tighten. He goes back to rubbing her clit while she teases her own nipples. With so much stimulation, she moans in surprise, “I’m coming again!” And she comes apart for a second time.

Her eyes are closed but she feels him find his release right after her and soon he is laying flat on top of her, his breath heavy in her ear, his hands still roaming her body.

She wonders how long it will take him to be ready to go again, and then she remembers she’s supposed to be disgusted by him. Grant Ward. The man who betrayed all her friends and tried to kill her.

He rolls off of her and onto his back, still trying to catch his breath. “Was that … OK?” he whispers.

“Mmm,” she hums in reply. She looks over at him; he’s looking at her expectantly. That question was loaded, but she can still barely think. “More than OK,” she says with a laugh. She bites her lip.

“You’re gorgeous,” he says in awe, rolling onto his side to look at her better. She figures it is back to doughy-eyed couple mode.

“You’re not so bad yourself,” she says, running her hand lightly over his abs. He takes that hand and kisses each fingertip slowly.

“You want to finish our shower?” he asks.

“Sure,” she says with a knowing look. She follows him out of bed and he looks at her playfully before scooping her up in his arms. She laughs as he carries her into the bathroom and plops her down.

“Thanks, my legs feel like Jell-O,” she admits to him with an unforced smile.

“I wondered,” he smirks, opening the door and putting the water on.

She follows him in and they both lather up with soap, avoiding eye contact.

He breaks first and asks bluntly, “Was it really OK?”

“You didn’t hear me come? Twice?”

“You know what I mean.”

“What’s a little hate sex between enemies?” she whispers cavalierly.

He considers her words for a moment as she rinses off in the hot water. “You know, I’m getting tired of these veiled insults.”

“Are they veiled? I thought I was being forthright.”

“You keep saying I disgust you, that you hate me. Then you beg me to fuck you?” Ward whispers angrily.

“I didn’t beg –”

He interrupts her, “Do you really hate me or do you hate yourself for wanting me?”

“Can’t it be both?” she says, exasperated. Her pulse is racing. They’re glaring at each other now. He eases his guard first.

“So … does that mean,” he asks slowly, “you’d do it again?”

She shrugs. “I mean, we already did it once. The world didn’t end.” She can’t tell if she really feels blasé about it or if she’s pretending so he doesn’t know just how badly she _does_ want to do it again. _Wait –_ her thoughts stall _– she does?_ Before she can reason why, she finds herself saying, “it’s just biology.”

“Right, biology,” he whispers back. “I’m hot, you’re hot …”

“You think I’m hot?” she teases, lifting an eyebrow.

“I think you’re the sexiest woman I’ve ever seen,” he says earnestly.

She blushes and rolls her eyes half-heartedly. “I thought you weren’t going to lie to me in here.”

“I’m not.”

She looks at him confused and he almost seems sincere, but then again he’s Grant Ward. She shakes her head. “Faking it probably didn’t fool anyone anyway.”

“You didn’t sound the same,” he says with a laugh, “Like, at all.”

“We might as well just do it properly,” she whispers. “For our covers, of course. And if it helps us relax at the same time …”

“I’m not going to relax until I get you out of here.”

“And when is that going to be?” she huffs at him.

“Hopefully, Friday night.”

“Friday?!” she whispers with sheer hope in her voice. “Why Friday?”

“I told Whitehall it was our anniversary. I’m hoping they let me take you out to dinner. Out, out.”

“Well … great!” she says, relieved. “And after the show we just put on …”

“I think we’re golden now,” he says with a shrug. “Just have to keep it up for a few more days.”

She closes her eyes as she rinses her hair. A few more days. She’ll finally be out of this luxury apartment with the gorgeous view. She won’t have to come home every night to a man who loves her and kisses her softly and serves her dinner and listens to what happened during her day. _No, pretends to love her. Pretends to care about what happened with her day._

Her little bunk at the Playground flashes through her mind. She barely lived there long enough to call it home. She doesn’t have a home anymore. Not even with Fitz. No, everything has changed. _She’s_ changed.

She moves out of the water to allow Ward to wash off and she unabashedly takes the opportunity to watch as the droplets slide down his muscles, appreciating this specimen of a man before her. She looks away once she starts to feel a little hot and bothered.

“Anything else?” she asks him.

“No, just be ready to go,” he whispers. “If they let us.”

She nods and leaves him to finish his shower. She wraps herself in her towel and tries not to think about the man on the other side of the door.


	11. Fake Smile

Every day until Friday seems terribly long. Jemma goes to the lab and tries to keep focus on completing her tasks, but if Fitz were here he’d be able to tell something is off.

At night, Ward makes her dinner and they cuddle on the couch, playing Scrabble or watching movies – sometimes both. They kiss goodnight but it doesn’t lead to more. She doesn’t let it.

Friday morning finally comes and when she gets to the lab, she looks at everything with the hope that it’s for the last time. She’s even pleasant to Dr. Gordon for most of the day, hoping he doesn’t ruin all her samples once she’s gone. _Or rather, hopes he does._

When she’s about to leave for the day, Dr. Whitehall shows up at her door. “Dr. Simmons,” he says, “come with me.”

She swallows hard and follows him out of the lab. He takes her in the elevator to a higher floor, making idle chit-chat on the way. At least he doesn’t have any armed guards with him. He must be taking her to his personal lab to ask her opinion on something. _Or he’s taking her somewhere private to kill her._

When they get to their destination, his lab is quite different from what she expected. It’s about as opposite as it could be from the modern labs she’s been working in. It would be an understatement to say his equipment is dated. It’s also quite dark in the room, compared to the bright neon lighting she sees in the rest of the building.

He motions for her to follow him to a door and gives her a small smile before opening it. “I thought you might like to see the fruits of your labor.”

Jemma follows him into the next room and is horrified by the display in front of her. There is a woman bound so she can’t move. She has a burn on her face around one eye, and both of her eyes are forcibly held open. She is staring into a screen that is displaying pulsing images. Bakshi is standing idly beside her. His face lights up when Jemma enters the room.

“Ah, Dr. Simmons,” Bakshi says. “What a pleasure it is to see you again.”

Her stomach churns. Ward told her to be careful of Bakshi, so anything he is involved with can’t be good. And it certainly doesn’t look good, judging by what’s happening to the dark-haired woman before her.

“Quite,” she mumbles. “And what do we have here?” she nods toward the elephant in the room, since the men haven’t yet offered an explanation as to what she’s doing there. 

“Ever heard of the Faustus method?” Whitehall asks.

“Yes,” she says, “Psychological coercion – though there’s very little evidence that the technique works.”

“Until now,” Bakshi says, pointing to the woman. 

“The antiserum you’ve been working on? It solves a problem we were having with the method,” Whitehall explains as he takes a vial of what she recognizes to be the formula she’s been perfecting for weeks. No wonder it had taken so long to crack, she had never known its practical application. “You’ve done very well.”

She wracks her brain for the clues she may have missed over the past few weeks. Anything that would have prevented her from contributing to whatever torture was being performed in front of her.

Whitehall injects the woman with the liquid, but she doesn’t even flinch. Jemma tries to make her face look blank while she panics inside. She has to get this woman out of here. Whatever they’re doing to her cannot be good. _And she helped them._

She knew she wasn’t working on something that was quite humanitarian but she didn’t expect anything like this. Turgeon’s warning echoes in her head. If she hadn’t listened to Ward, she would have kept her head down on the lower levels and would have never known her genius was being used to brainwash people. Is that really what Whitehall is doing?

“You’re uncharacteristically quiet, Dr. Simmons,” Whitehall says, observing her.

She swallows the bile making its way up her throat.

“I’m speechless,” she says, drawing on May’s training to use the truth to her advantage. She manages to quirk her mouth into a slight smile at Whitehall.

“Agent 33,” he points to the bound woman, “is going to be a true asset for HYDRA once I’m done using the method on her – again. I wanted you to know how integral your work has been in getting her there.”

“I had no idea I was helping with something so …” she searches for the right word. _Vile? Disgusting? Horrific? Evil?_ “Groundbreaking,” she finally says.

“Discovery requires experimentation,” he shrugs.

Bakshi smiles at her and it makes her skin crawl. “I knew you would do us proud, Dr. Simmons.”

All she can do is nod at him. Whitehall motions for her to leave the room and he follows her out, leaving Bakshi with Agent 33.

“Thank you,” she manages to say, though she’s not sure what she is thanking him for. Maybe for dispelling the notion that a scientist’s work in HYDRA could be anything less than sinister.

“Like I said, you’ve done well, Dr. Simmons,” he says fondly. “You know, a few weeks ago I was wondering if I needed to use my method on you, too.” He chuckles at that and she tries to keep a straight face. She tries to think of something to say to cover up her building terror. But didn’t Ward tell her not to talk at all if she didn’t have to?

“I’m happy Grant could clear that up before you needed to,” she manages to say with a level voice.

“Ah yes, your loyal beau … Though Bakshi and I have been wondering, can a man that muscular really keep up with your clever brain?”

Her eyes widen. _What is that supposed to mean?_ “Opposites attract,” she says with a nervous smile.

Whitehall walks to his desk and pulls out a drawer. “You know, he asked me for a restaurant recommendation for the two of you. Something about an anniversary?”

“Yes, it’s today actually,” she answers, hoping this is going somewhere more pleasant.

Whitehall pulls a box out of his drawer and walks toward her. “I went ahead and made you a reservation at my favorite place; I hope you like Italian.” He gives her a slight smile and hands her the box.

“Oh, thank you, sir,” she says. She looks down at the box in her hand. “And what’s this?”

“A token of my appreciation.”

She opens the box to find a necklace with a diamond pendant. It’s simple, classic – much like Dr. Whitehall. Though why he is giving this to her, she has no idea.

“Thank you, sir,” she says. “It’s beautiful.”

“May I?” he asks, opening the clasp. She turns and he secures it around her neck. She turns back to see him examining her.

“Stunning,” he says, admiring her neck. His eyes flick to hers. “You’re quite the classic beauty, Dr. Simmons.” He walks back to his desk and sits down. “I do hope Agent Ward appreciates that he’s found a partner with beauty _and_ brains.”

She tries not to blush, which is easy to do because while he seems to be complimenting her, he really is terrifying. The threat of what’s going on in the next room makes her want to run away and never come back. Luckily, Whitehall is letting them go on their date tonight. If all goes well, she will be back at the Playground before morning. She grabs onto that warm feeling so she can finish this cold conversation.

“He does,” she answers. “And it sounds like you may have ruined one of his romantic surprises. I should be getting ready for what I assume will be a delicious dinner, since it’s a place you recommended.”

“Ah yes, I won’t keep you any longer,” he says, gesturing toward the door. “I’ll be eager to hear if it lives up to your expectations.”

“Thank you, sir,” she says, turning toward the door. She tries to walk toward the elevator casually despite her legs itching to break into a sprint. She knows she will be going straight for the shower in her flat, the only place where she will be able to let out a silent scream or two.

 _Who was that woman? Was she a SHIELD agent?_ He said “Agent 33” and she’s only vaguely familiar with that classification. She was obviously being held against her will and the fact she didn’t move an inch the whole time Jemma was in the room was a little more than horrifying.

She makes it to the door of the suite and realizes she doesn’t have her key. She left her handbag in lab. She knocks desperately on the door, hoping Ward is inside.

“What’s wrong?” Ward asks her when he opens the door.

“I left my bag in the lab,” she explains, walking straight for the bathroom. Ward follows her. She puts her hands on the edge of the vanity and stares at herself in the mirror. She is disgusted by her own face. The eager scientist, too clever for her own good, who should have known she was working on something monstrous.

Ward is looking at her tentatively in the mirror, trying to discern the look on her face. She turns around quickly.

“I heard we’re going to dinner?” She tries to look excited. 

“Oh no, who told you?” Ward asks in his boyfriend voice. He pulls her closer to him to wrap her in a hug and she falls into him, knowing she actually needs one.

“Dr. Whitehall.”

“Did he ruin the whole surprise?”

“Depends,” she says, pulling back and looking at him suspiciously. “What are you planning?”

“You’ll see,” he says with a smile. His eyes run down her face and land on her new diamond necklace. He frowns. “What’s this?”

“A gift,” she explains, fiddling with the pendant, “from Dr. Whitehall.”

His eyes narrow. “For what?” he bites out.

“Something about a job well done?” she says dismissively. But she tries to give him a look that conveys her horror about the job she did well. 

“We should get ready to go,” he says, nodding in understanding. “Shower?” Before they get in, he removes the necklace and puts it on a table in the hall. 

When the water starts to steam, Ward gets close to her. “What happened?” he asks.

“Whitehall showed me what I’ve been working on.” She doesn’t want to say any more, she just gives him another look to convey her sheer horror. He doesn’t pry and pulls her into his arms instead.

“It’s OK, you had no choice,” he whispers soothingly as he comforts her.

“I don’t want to think about it right now. We’re getting out of here,” she whispers, pulling away from him. “Do you think something is in the necklace? A tracker?”

Ward shrugs. “Either that or a bug. Hopefully not something worse.”

Jemma shudders. She picks up the shampoo and starts washing her hair. “What’s the plan then?”

“We go to dinner. I’ll make sure we’re not being tailed. We’ll have to leave everything there. Maybe sneak off for a ‘quickie’ in the bathroom and run out the back?”

“Sounds like a good plan to me,” she says, rinsing the shampoo out.

“Would you mind, um ...” He looks embarrassed. It’s a first.

“What?” she asks, stepping out from under the spray.

“That necklace has me thinking. They could have put a tracker in either one of us without us knowing. Can you check for me? Please?”

“Check?”

“Yeah just … run your hands over my skin. See if you feel anything.”

Her eyes widen as she looks at Grant’s body. _He wants her to … touch him? All over?_ She starts to wonder again if it’s hot in there or if it’s just her.

“Of course,” she manages to say in her most clinical voice. “And then you’ll do me?”

“Yeah,” Ward breathes out. He sticks out his arm to start.

As she slowly feels her way from his fingers to his shoulder, she considers that it would have made more logical sense to only check the parts of his body he couldn’t reach. But since she’d spent a few days last week imagining just this sort of scenario, she isn’t about to argue that he could take care of this mostly on his own.

He ducks down so she can touch the back of his neck. She doubles back around on the firmest areas, just to be sure, even gliding her hands carefully along his scalp. It only makes sense for her to do a thorough job, since he asked so politely.

She works down his back just as thoroughly, over the taut muscles she hasn’t gotten a good look at before. She starts to wonder if she would even know if she was feeling a tracker, when her hands come to the small of his back and she hesitates, looking down at his muscular gluteus maximus.

“It’s OK,” he says, sensing her hesitation. “I don’t mind.”

She tries to be delicate about putting her hands on his bum, but it really does require a bit of squeezing to truly feel it. And that’s not all she’s feeling as her core starts to pulse with desire, though how it took this long she has no idea.

She works down the backs of his thighs, getting on her knees to feel down his legs, and then asks him to turn so she can go up the front of his body from there. Before she realizes it, she is eye level with his cock and her eyes dart up to him looking down at her darkly.

“Surely, you’d be more comfortable checking this area yourself,” she mutters before standing up again, staring him in the eye. “All good so far,” she says in a high-pitched voice.

She runs her hands up his washboards abs to his chest and can’t help herself from being even more thorough in this position. She looks up to see him biting his lip and closing his eyes.

She sneaks a peek down and sees his cock is getting hard. She knows she can grab it if she wants to. She could hold it in her hand and give it the same attention she’s already given the rest of his body, stroke it until he is moaning her name. Or she could get back down on her knees and take him into her mouth. Or face the shower wall and tell him to fuck her into it.

But she doesn’t.

They’re about to leave this gilded prison and she is just getting distracted. This is the kind of thing Grant Ward does and if she’s not careful, she’ll somehow fall into his trap. She’s still not completely sure this whole thing isn’t a set-up anyway.

“All good,” she says brightly, taking a step back from him. He opens his eyes and looks down at her hungrily. He goes to run his hand over her shoulder and she moves quickly away from him. “You know, I think I can check myself.”

She turns around so she doesn’t have to see his disappointed look. “Though it’d be great if you could get my back?” She moves her hair out of the way for him and braces herself.

“Sure,” he croaks.

He runs his hands firmly across the back of her neck, and down her back. He seems to be taking his time the way she did. When he hits the same area that made her pause before, she finds herself telling him to go ahead the same way he did. And she has to suppress a moan when his rough hands kneed into her bum, though she is sure Ward must have noticed her sharp intake of breath at the sensation.

He runs his hands lightly up and down her back one last time before letting go. “Nothing,” he says.

She turns to face him. “If there’s something in that necklace, do you think there might be something in our clothes?”

“Possibly,” he says, “so we should find new clothes and a car once we leave the restaurant.”

“We’re finally getting out of here,” she says with a smile. He returns it. “So have you come to a decision?”

He furrows his brow. “About what?”

“About being damned if you do, damned if you don’t?”

“I think –” he starts. “No, I _know_ that I need to get as far away from SHIELD and HYDRA as possible.”

“You mean disappear?” she asks.

He nods.

“Well that wouldn’t be much of a life, would it?” she asks sadly.

“Yeah, but I’d be free,” he says.

She considers his answer. From what he’s told her about his life, he’s never truly been the one calling the shots. She can see the appeal for him. She hopes he makes that choice and doesn’t stay with HYDRA. She smiles at him, and he returns it.

He grabs some soap and starts washing up while she runs her hands over her skin in the corner. Up and down each arm. Over her clavicle and up her neck. Down her chest and around her stomach. She is trying her hardest but there’s really no way of doing this without it being slightly erotic, and she can feel Ward’s eyes on her the whole time. He excuses himself finally and when she’s done, satisfied there are no foreign objects protruding beneath her skin, finishes washing her hair and body. 

She tries not to think about what she saw in Whitehall’s office but now that she’s alone, she can’t get the image of Agent 33 out of her head. _How can she leave knowing what is happening to that woman and who knows how many other people?_ But it’s not like she can do anything for her. Once she’s back at the base, she can tell Coulson what she saw and maybe he can do something about it. She focuses on the task at hand – getting the hell out of here as quickly as possible.

She styles her hair and puts on way too much makeup. She puts on the necklace that Whitehall gave her, though she fully intends to flush it down the toilet at the restaurant before they leave. She pieces together from her limited wardrobe what could pass for date attire and practically pulls Ward out the door with her.

“Let’s go,” she says eagerly as the suite door slams behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things got a little weird in the shower. Felt cute, might delete later...


	12. Almost is Never Enough

“You look nice,” Ward says to her in the elevator.

She smiles at him genuinely, and blushes. “Thanks.”

They swing by her lab to grab her forgotten bag, and hold hands casually as they walk across the lobby of the building she hasn’t left in almost a month. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees someone walking toward them and worries they’re going to be stopped on the way.

“Dr. Simmons, for the second time today? I should buy a lottery ticket,” Sunil Bakshi says flirtatiously. He nods at Ward. “Agent Ward.”

“Hello Mr. Bakshi,” she says.

“We were just on our way out,” Ward says coolly. “I hope you don’t mind catching up later.”

“You can count on it, Dr. Simmons,” Bakshi says pointedly. “I’m delighted Dr. Whitehall has brought you in on our little project. I should be happy to be working with you a lot more closely going forward.”

She manages to feign a smile and Ward tugs on her elbow. “Thank you, sir,” she says. She and Ward practically run out the door.

Out on the street, she’s taken aback by the sounds around her and the sheer amount of people bustling about on this warm Friday night. She’s hasn’t been around this many people in a month, let alone been outside.

“You OK?” he asks while he tries to hail them a taxi.

“Yeah it’s just … a little overwhelming,” she admits, gesturing to the chaos of the busy street. “In a good way, I guess.”

“I meant him,” Ward mumbles. “I don't like the way he was talking to you.”

She gives him a knowing look. “Me neither,” she whispers.

She leans into him in the back seat of the taxi, unsure of when they can drop their covers but sure that his warm body will ground her against the surreal feeling of freedom and the aftershocks from witnessing Whitehall’s “little project” in action. Ten minutes later, they arrive at Dominic’s Italian Bistro.

It’s appropriately crowded for a Friday night. Ward pulls out her chair for her when they are seated and she gives him a warm smile. She may not have been out of the building in a month, but she doesn’t even remember the last time she went on a date. 

The waiter brings over a bottle of champagne, courtesy of Daniel Whitehall. She and Ward smile in appreciation, but when she goes to take a drink, he shakes his head at her and she only pretends to sip at it.

“I’m going to use the restroom,” he says after they order and she knows he is going to case it first. When he comes back, he somehow makes it sound normal to tell her it’s a single stall with a lock and that there is, luckily, a window they can use to sneak out.

“You know, I was thinking I need to use the loo, as well,” she says, taking his hand across the table. “Would you mind showing me where it is? They seem busy, I’d hate to bother the staff.”

“Of course,” he says, winking at her, “wouldn’t want you to get lost.”

They throw their cloth napkins on the table and she follows him across the room to a back hallway where there are a few doors with signs indicating they are all unisex toilets. He kisses her before pulling her into one of the rooms, running his hands up and down her body like he wants her that badly. He kicks the door closed behind them and then releases her abruptly.

He nods and they take off all the clothes they can without being naked. He turns to the window to quietly open it while she lets out a few fake moans for effect. Just as she takes off her necklace – which may be a recording device, tracker or something worse – and goes to flush it down the toilet, Ward’s cellphone rings.

“Shit,” he mutters. He forgot to leave it at the table where she left her things. They look at each other, suddenly nervous.

He checks the number and shows her that it’s one of the mission commanders. He answers it after the fifth ring and says “yes, sir” a few times before hanging up.

“Well?” she asks.

“I’m sorry, baby, but we’re going to have to cut tonight short,” he says reluctantly.

“Why?” she asks, practically heartbroken.

“They need me to go out on a mission. Apparently someone tripped the silent alarm at one of our subsidiaries.”

“But we’re not on base,” she argues. “Can’t they send someone else?”

“Apparently, it has to be me,” he says, shaking his head.

“But we had plans,” she says. She gestures to the window. “Can it wait?”

“They need me to get back right away,” he says, shrugging. He looks to be at a loss. This may just be a coincidence but her gut says someone tailing them saw them go off to the bathroom together and got suspicious. _Or Ward filled them in on the plan._

“Fucking hell!” she says in exasperation.

“I’ll make it up to you, baby, you know I will,” he says. “I’m so sorry.” The look in his eye indicates he’s sorry for more than a missed dinner.

She reluctantly puts her necklace back on and picks her shed clothing off the floor, far more than disappointed that their plan isn’t going to work out tonight.

“Hail HYDRA,” she says sarcastically as they pull themselves together.

Ward tells the waiter they have an emergency and leaves some cash on the table while they rush out the door. He grabs them a cab and soon enough, she is back in their suite, alone. She finds some leftovers in the fridge and pouts as she picks at it. Her mushroom risotto at the restaurant sounded so good, even though she wasn’t planning to stay long enough to eat it. Her appetite is low but she forces herself to finish her entire plate.

She considers opening a bottle of wine and getting smashed just to spite Ward and Whitehall and whatever came up tonight that was so important. She feels every bit the disgruntled girlfriend she is currently portraying, though instead of missing out on hot sex and a nice meal, she is missing out on a reunion with her team and a chance to make things right with Fitz.

She watches TV to occupy her mind and goes to bed as late as possible. Once she’s under the covers, she can’t get her mind off the day’s events and she starts to panic. She is going to have to keep participating in Whitehall’s nefarious deeds for the foreseeable future. She doesn’t know how they could think of a better excuse than an anniversary dinner.

 _But they shouldn’t have to think of one, what’s to stop her from running out the door right now? What if it’s just the fear of the unknown keeping her here?_ Ward was the one who told her she couldn’t leave, not Whitehall. What if Ward really is working with Whitehall to keep her here? Who else would have known what was going to happen once they snuck into the bathroom together?

She starts having trouble breathing and tears well up in her eyes. When her hands start shaking, she knows she is having a panic attack. She doesn’t know how to clear her mind to stop it. There’s nowhere safe for her to go. She pulls the covers over her head and rolls herself into a ball. That doesn’t make breathing any easier, but it comforts her somehow. She sobs into her pillow and beats her fists against the mattress.

Suddenly, strong arms are around her and she knows by his smell that it’s Ward. He holds her in his arms and whispers soothing things, but she lets out all the frustration and sadness anyway until she feels so drained, there’s nothing left to release. He takes off his shirt and tells her she can blow her nose into it and she does so without hesitation.

He doesn’t seem to care that she’s a mess, he just holds her until she falls into a deep sleep.


	13. No Tears Left to Cry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading this far! You're about to get some payoff on the slow burn. Enjoy :)

She wakes up the next morning in Ward’s arms and though her first instinct is to wiggle away from him, the comfort she is still finding in him after the events of last night cause her to lean into him that much more. She shakes her head before she can start thinking and looks around the room to put her mind on anything else. But the room itself is the problem. She’s trapped; she’s a prisoner here.

Her eyes well up with tears and that’s when Ward stirs, pulling her still closer against him as he stretches and shakes off his sleep. The comfort of his arms causes the tears to fall and she sniffles to suppress a sob.

“Jemma,” he whispers, fully awake now. He leans back so he can put her face in his hands. “Jemma, baby, please.”

She knows how it looks that she’s crying. Especially after her breakdown last night. Whoever is surveilling them will be suspicious. But she doesn’t know how to stop. She wants her mind to go blank so she can forget, so she impulsively leans forward to put her lips against Ward’s.

His body tightens before he relaxes into her, likely caught off guard. They were already holding each other close, and the kiss closes any remaining gap between them. Their bodies are pressed fully against each other now – his firm and hers soft. Their tongues intertwine and he rolls to get on top of her.

He shifts his lips to her neck and she moans in pleasure as he licks and bites until he can get close enough to her ear to whisper, “what are we doing?”

She runs her hands quickly down his torso and right to his cock, cupping it in her hand until it is fully hard. Ward pauses his kisses and moans into her ear.

“Happy anniversary,” she says in a low voice.

He pulls himself up to look her in the eye, leaning over her with his palms on either side of her shoulders. He is trying to hide his confusion and she playfully bites his lower lip. She holds it between her teeth as she holds his gaze. “Jemma,” he gasps, when she lets go.

She lays back down and gives him a come-hither stare, all traces of her tears gone. She wants to get lost in him. She wants to feel good again, even for only a few minutes. “Don’t you want to give me your present?” she asks, staring down at his hard cock, popping at the seam of his pajamas.

“You want me to…” he is bewildered but the confusion goes out of his eye and the cockiness returns when he finishes, “ _give it_ to you?”

“Oh, yes,” she smiles mischievously, running her hands up his arms “Please _give it_ to me.”

Ward whimpers before going right back to teasing her neck with his open-mouthed kisses. She moans as his hand slides down her stomach to her core. The tips of his fingers are enough to turn her on as her own explore the parts of his body she hasn’t touched before – well, since last night when he asked her to touch _all_ of him. 

Still, the feel of his taught muscles under her fingertips makes her want to enroll him in a scientific study on the perfect male physique. He’s just that breathtaking, physically. Mentally and emotionally, he’s not that attractive. But she doesn’t need to think about either of those things right now.

She doesn’t realize his kisses have been making a trail over the still healing cuts and bruises she sustained under interrogation until he comes to rest over the faded welt on her stomach. She runs her hand through his hair as he kisses it tenderly. He looks up at her and smiles, then continues making his way down between her thighs.

Her body suddenly tightens and she tries to shut her legs to him. He looks up from under the covers in confusion.

“I just realized,” she stutters out. “You know, I didn’t brush my teeth and … and … I’m not sure I’m quite as _hygienic_ as I could be in this moment. Maybe I should run into the bathroom for a minute.”

“You’re choosing to be self-conscious _now_?” he asks. He gives her a look like she’s an adorable puppy and, keeping eye contact, runs his tongue from her pussy to her clit. He swirls his tongue for a moment, smiling as she opens her legs wide to him again and lets out a soft moan. She whimpers when he removes his tongue and watches, enraptured, as he licks his lips.

“Tastes good to me,” he says in a sexy voice. She blushes from head to toe, but doesn’t move an inch or say a word as she waits for him to continue.

He takes another long lick while he watches her, then turns his gaze to the task at hand. Her head falls back onto a pillow as she tries to relax and not buck her hips into his face. Whatever Grant Ward learned in spy seduction school came in very, very handy. No wonder he had suggested they try this sooner.

His fingers join his tongue in working her over. He appears to be quite handy in that aspect, too. He gently pushes them into her pussy and experiments with pressure on her walls. When she lets out a particularly pleased moan that resembles his first name, he focuses on the spot with his fingers while his mouth sucks on her clit. The combination of his precision is enough to drive her over the edge and she grabs his hair to hold him in place while she comes.

She’s vaguely aware that Ward is kissing his way back up her body, but with her eyes closed and head rested on the pillow, she doesn’t pay him attention until he reaches her lips. His tongue slides into her mouth so she can taste herself and she opens her eyes wide to look at him.

“See what I mean?” he whispers into her ear as his lips move again to her neck.

She swallows. She has become putty in his hands, which are now focused on teasing her breasts. She reaches out her hand to his hip and looks down to see his erection. He’s done so much for her this morning, she considers how to return the favor.

She rolls onto her side so he can no longer access her neck. He looks at her confused and, keeping eye contact the way he did, she runs her hand down his torso and along his cock to the tip. She teases him there with her soft fingertips. He bites his lip, looking down to watch her. She gently pushes him onto his back and crawls under the covers so she can get her mouth on him.

She starts off like he did, with a teasing lick all along his shaft. His mouth drops open and he stares at her. She traces a bulging vein with her tongue from his balls to the tip again and licks her lips. “Mmm,” she says, as if his cock were an ice cream cone. His hand brushes her chin and she looks up at him.

“You’re so fucking sexy,” he says.

She finds his thumb on her chin and takes it into her mouth, sucking on it crudely. She takes his shaft into her hand at the same time and pumps.

“Fuck,” he says, his head falling back.

She takes his hand out of her mouth and rests it onto the bed. Next, she guides his cock between her lips and repeats what she did to his thumb a second before.

“Fuck,” he says again, sitting up desperately to watch her.

She smiles with him in her mouth and then swirls her tongue around to get him covered in spit, making it that much easier to bob her head back and forth over him. His hand moves into her hair, suggesting that she move just a little faster. She takes him out of her mouth with a pop and before he can protest, starts using her tongue on his balls. When he’s squirming beneath her she stops altogether and looks up at him.

“I want you inside me,” she says matter-of-factly, “now.”

He scrambles to make that happen as quickly as possible. He pulls her under her arms until her cunt is lined up with his cock. Then he easily flips her over onto her back and just as easily slides into her. Her back arches to the sensation and he pauses to let her get adjusted.

She finds his hand and laces their fingers together. He brings them up to his lips and kisses them. Then, still paused inside of her, he puts both palms firmly on the bed beside her and leans to kiss her lips. She smiles against him and when she squeezes his bum, he starts to move.

…

They lay on their backs panting. She turns onto her side to study him, running her finger tips along his chiseled jaw.

“How many sexual partners have you had?” she asks him bluntly.

He’s still for a moment before he bursts out laughing. “You finally want to make pillow talk and _that’s_ what you ask me?”

“I’m naturally curious,” she says, laughing with him. “And now I’m trying to observe you in your natural habitat.”

“My natural habitat?”

“You think maybe you’ve hit 50? 100?”

“100?!”

“You’ve mentioned your seduction assignments …”

“Yeah, but those don’t always include sex.”

“What about the other times?”

“I can’t believe you’re asking me this.” He runs a hand over his face, perhaps to hide his embarrassment. 

“OK fine, let’s say excluding your missions, how many sexual partners have you had?”

“Well, that makes it easier,” he says thoughtfully. If she didn’t know better she’d think he was nervous. “Two.”

“Two?!” She sits up in surprise.

“One girlfriend at the Academy and now you.”

“Two … including me?” They both know she is not included in that number. Meaning he’s only slept with one woman of his own volition. She finds that incredibly sad, not even knowing how many others were marks.

“Would you rather I count all the missions?” He sits up as well, leaning against the headboard.

“No,” she scoffs. “But two including me, that’s surprising.”

“I’m very focused on my work,” he says with a shrug. “And I was in the wilderness for so long.”

“The ‘wilderness’?”

“Garrett dropped me off one day, no supplies, left me alone for six months.

“Six months?!”

“It wasn’t a big deal. I learned how to survive. I was there for a few years, before I went to the Academy.”

“Years?!” she asks. “How many is a ‘few’?”

“Um,” he says, running his hand over the back of his neck. “Like … five?”

“Five years living alone in the woods?!” she looks at him in shock. Especially since he is saying it like it’s all completely normal. _Why did John Garrett leave Ward alone in the wilderness for five years? Is that how he got Ward to be so devoted to him?_ Ward might not have been forced to do what he did, but it is certainly sounding like he was severely manipulated. If not brainwashed.

“It was a HYDRA thing,” he says, shrugging. She’s still gaping at him and he looks away nervously. “So I gave you my number, what’s yours?”

“You’re trying to change the subject.”

“Of course I am,” he laughs. “I don’t want to talk about that. In bed. Naked.” He runs his hand up her thigh and his voice gets lower. “But what I do want to talk about is …”

“Eight,” she says proudly.

“Eight?!” He looks surprised. “But you went to nerd school!”

Jemma gestures to her body.

“Well of course you’re gorgeous,” he says, rolling his eyes.

She blushes. “I was at a scientific academy, Grant. Discovery requires … experimentation, as Dr. Whitehall would say.”

“No wonder you’re so –” he struggles to find the right word.

“Yes?” She cocks an eyebrow.

“Confident. In bed.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” She grins.

“So I’m lucky number eight?” he asks, pulling her into his lap.

She wraps her arms around his neck and smirks. “Lucky number nine, actually.”

“Nine?!” His eyes widen and he looks at her incredulously. She winks. “Goddamnit Jemma, you are full of surprises.”

…

She surprises him again that night when she gets home from the lab, immediately pulling him into bed before she can reflect on the nefarious deeds she contributed to that day. And then again in the morning, skiving off from training.

They don’t know when they’ll have another chance to leave. It was more than suspicious that almost as soon as Jemma took her necklace off, Ward was called back to the base. They spend their days working as diligent HYDRA agents and their nights (and some mornings) in the sheets, working out their frustrations. Until it becomes almost normal. Until she starts to forget that he isn’t really Jemma Simmons’ boyfriend.

One morning, about 10 days after their failed escape, she’s in the shower after their training session and Ward comes to join her. She turns to him and flashes a smile, which he takes as some sort of permission because suddenly his arms are wrapped around her back and he is laying sweet kisses along her neck. She leans into him, letting her right hand make its way up into his hair. His hands are sliding down her body, and they’re just about to reach the apex of her thighs when she snaps back to reality.

“Wait,” she whispers, pulling out of his reach. “What are we doing? We don't need to do this in here, no one’s watching.”

Ward takes a step back from her. “Oh, right.” He turns away and grabs the soap.

She lets out a sigh because she knows where that was going and it would have felt bloody brilliant. “And besides, when was the last time we actually had a conversation?”

Ward looks at her with a slight smile as he lathers up. He makes a big show of thinking about it. “Ummmm … last Tuesday? Maybe?” Then his face lights up with a big grin.

“Oh don’t look so smug,” she says with a light smack on his arm.

“Hey, I seem to remember you jumping me –”

“I did not ‘jump you’ –”

“After practically begging me to fuck you –”

“I did not ‘beg you’ –”

“And you have seemed particularly satisfied –”

“Satisfied?!”

“And in a much better mood for the past week –”

“Well sex releases serotonin, everyone knows that.”

“You can’t blame me for not wanting to keep my hands off you,” he finishes as he rinses himself off. She doesn’t respond and he cocks an eyebrow at her.

“We need a new plan,” she says, changing the subject.

“I know.” He sighs and steps out from under the showerhead. “I asked Whitehall about a raincheck at Dominic’s and he completely brushed me off, said we’re needed here right now.”

An idea forms in Jemma’s head. She’s examining Ward and she starts to consider that maybe …

“Take a deep breath and clear your mind,” Jemma says abruptly, her mouth moving faster than her brain. “Surrender and you will find meaning. Surrender and you will find release.” She looks deep into Ward’s eyes, searching for a sign that he might be under Whitehall’s influence. “Take a deep breath. Calm your mind. You know what is best. What’s best is you comply. Are you ready to comply?”

“What are you talking about Simmons?” he gapes at her.

She tries again and he scrunches up his face, clearly confused.

“Sorry,” she apologizes after. “I just wanted to check that you – that you’re not …”

“What?” he asks. “Is that like some secret SHIELD code I never learned?”

“They’re brainwashing people,” she whispers as quietly as she can. “I first saw it with Donnie Gill but I didn’t understand the scope of it then. It’s what Whitehall wants me to work on with Bakshi – though he hasn’t followed through on that just yet. _Thankfully._ But that’s what they say when they want people to do something for them. Something about those words triggers them.”

“Oh, so that’s what freaked you out so much?” he nods, letting it all snap into place. “I’ve heard of it before ... How are they doing it?”

“Whitehall has a pretty elaborate system. And my work is part of it.” She shakes her head to indicate that she obviously isn’t a willing participant. “It’s horrifying.”

“So you thought I was brainwashed?”

“Either one of us could be and might not even know it.”

Ward nods, taking the information in. “You think I’m still working for HYDRA? That I might have botched our escape plan?”

“It’s certainly possible.”

“I would never do that!” He starts to get angry, raising his voice above the typical shower whispering.

“You wouldn’t know,” she says sadly.

“And how do I know it’s not you? That you haven’t been the one manipulating me this whole time?”

“Oh please, Ward, if we’re going to compare records –”

“Is that why you’ve been having sex with me all the time?”

“Don’t be ridiculous!”

“Take a deep breath,” he says. “Calm your mind. You know what’s best. It’s best that you comply. Your compliance will be rewarded. Are you ready to comply?”

Jemma lets out the breath she didn’t realize she was holding while he was speaking. “Nothing.” She puts her hands on her knees in relief. “Oh thank heavens. It’s neither of us.”

“How do you know that even works?”

“It’s the only thing I can think to try, apart from asking Whitehall to say it himself.”

“So we’re good? Neither one of us in brainwashed?”

“Hopefully?” she says with a nervous smile.

He stares her down. “Well in that case –” He closes the distance between them, pulls her into his arms and kisses her till she’s weak in the knees.

He pulls away and whispers so low that she can barely hear him over the beating of her heart and the sound of the shower. “You still haven’t answered my question – why are trying to fuck me every 10 minutes?”

She gapes at him. _Now that is an overstatement!_ But then she tries to remember the last time she had a conversation with Ward that didn’t lead to sex and she doesn’t know if that’s happened since their “anniversary.”

 _Was it really all her doing? Was she the one driving the escape she’s found with him these past two weeks?_ She thinks back on the times they’ve had sex and can’t remember him ever initiating the real thing. This is a man who will do — and has done — anything for a mission, and she wonders if she’s been taking advantage of him. _How is that possible?_ He’s staring her down and she can’t believe she’s actually feeling guilty.

“I’m sorry,” she finally says, ashamed. “I didn’t realize … It helps me forget. _You_ help me forget. And it’s the only time that I ever,” she swallows, not sure she can actually say this out loud, “feel safe in here.”

He makes the “taking it all in” face again.

“But we can stop, if you want,” she concedes. “We should stop.” She examines his face. “I didn’t mean to … coerce you.”

He laughs. “You didn’t coerce me.”

“Maybe I did beg you –”

“I was more than happy to –”

“Though I think ‘jumping’ you is still too strong of a word.”

“Believe me, Simmons, you definitely weren’t taking advantage of me.”

“OK.”

“OK.”

“So?”

“Wanna have sex before we have to go in?” he asks hesitantly.

“I’d like that very much.”

They’re back to kissing each other fervently, and when she gets to the lab an hour later than usual, she doesn’t apologize to anyone. She’s the boss, after all.


	14. Hands on Me

Ward is gone that night, out on a mission. And he isn’t back the next evening either. It’s a bit strange to be alone in their suite after spending so much time with him lately. She finishes dinner and sits down to watch TV with a cup of tea. Then she feels the vibration of her phone ringing in her pocket. She looks at the caller ID and it’s Ward. _Strange._

“Hello?” she asks.

“Hey baby,” he says in a husky voice.

“Hi, why are you calling?” she asks suspiciously. “Is there something wrong?”

“I can’t call just to say hi?”

“You never have before.”

“Well … hi.”

“Hi.”

“What are you doing?” he asks playfully.

“I’m watching TV. Where are you? When are you coming back?”

“I’m at another base. We’re going to stay the night but I’ll be back in the morning.”

“Oh,” she says, disappointed. “Where?”

“I can’t tell you. Classified.”

She scoffs and rolls her eyes.

“I was just thinking about you,” he says, the husky voice returned. “All alone. I thought maybe you might miss me.”

“Miss you?” she laughs.

“Just a little?”

“Hmm, well it’s beginning to sound like you called because you, in fact, miss _me_.”

“Would that be so hard to believe?”

“That depends. Are you alone?”

“Yes.”

“Are you in your own room?”

“Yes.”

She lowers her voice. “Take your cock out for me.”

“Simmons!” he says, shocked and delighted.

“That’s what you wanted, right?” she teases. “You’re all alone at some base in who-knows-where and you miss me around your cock.”

“Fuck,” he whispers.

“Are you hard?”

“I am now.”

“Good, take it out like I said," she says proudly. 

“Yes ma’am.” He obliges. “And what about you?”

“What _about_ me?” she asks, setting her cold tea on the coffee table.

“Are you wet for me?” Something about the way he says it sends a pulse straight to her core.

“Oh,” she lets out a little moan.

“Is that a yes?”

“Yes,” she breathes out. “I am now, too.”

“Where are you?” he asks.

“I’m on the couch.”

“Lay back, baby. Let me do all the work.”

“Um … all right,” she mumbles. She pulls a blanket over her and lays back on the couch. She touches her clit through her jeans. How is she already this turned on?

“You feel so good underneath me, baby,” he says. “Will you take your top off for me? So I can feel your tits?”

“Mmhmm,” she moans. _Yep, this is doing it for her._ She does as he says.

“Which bra are you wearing?”

She’s wearing a very boring nude colored one, but she knows it doesn’t matter when you’re having phone sex. “The red one,” she fibs.

“That’s my favorite,” he murmurs. “But I like it better off.”

She rests her phone against her ear so she can have her hands free. “OK,” she says, taking it off under the blanket. “It’s off.”

“Touch your breasts for me, baby. How do they feel?” 

“They’re bigger than my hands,” she moans out as she grips one in each hand. She plays with her nipples. “They’re soft. But my nipples are hard and they’re sensitive. I wish you were here to suck on them.”

“Fuck,” he moans. “Me too, baby. I know how much you like that. Lick your fingers. Pretend I have your nipples in my mouth.”

“Oh, Grant,” she moans through the phone. “That feels good.”

“Keep one hand on your tits but I want you to slide the other down your stomach. Real slow, OK?”

“OK,” she moans. But then she realizes that he’s completely taken control. She liked the feeling of power when she first told him to take out his penis and she wants to take it back. “Are you stroking your cock for me?” _There, that’ll do it._

“Yeah, baby,” he chokes out.

“Pretend it’s my hand on you – teasing the tip, sliding down to your balls. Play with them a little.” He moans into the phone. She slides her hand down to her clit and rubs. “Yeah, like that,” she whispers.

“Are you touching your clit?” he asks suddenly.

“How did you know?” she asks with a giggle.

“You have a tell,” he says. “Your voice changes. It’s really fucking sexy.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Did you take off your panties?”

“No.”

“You couldn’t wait?”

“I didn’t even unbutton my jeans,” she giggles again, and she’s almost embarrassed by the sound. _Has she ever even giggled before?_

“Get naked for me, baby," he commands. "I don't want anything in the way.”

Her embarrassment is gone; all that matters is the sound of the voice on the phone. She pulls her trousers and panties off. She throws them off the couch. She’s naked under the blanket and puts both hands on her breasts again. Her pelvic muscles are tightening, ready for Ward’s cock. But he’s not here. She’ll have to make do.

“I want your cock inside me,” she moans.

“So do I,” he sighs. “But you’ll have to use your fingers instead. Let’s start with one. And let me hear you.”

She slides her hand down her stomach again, briefly over her clit and slips one finger into her pussy. She moans loudly for him.

“That’s it, baby,” he says. “Fuck that pretty little pussy for me.”

She brings her other hand down and rubs her clit. She moans even louder.

“Another finger, baby.”

Her back arches at the sensation. “Oh yes!” she cries. She starts panting but she wants to hear about him. “What are you doing?”

“I’m touching myself, pretending you’re here with me. I’m picturing your hand on me. So small my cock barely fits in it.”

“I love touching it,” she moans, feeling herself getting closer. But she wants – no she needs – him to come with her. “I love feeling it so big in my little hands. Watching you squirm as I rub every single part of it. And I love putting it in my mouth, feeling you on my tongue and having you cum down my throat.”

“Jemma,” he moans on the other side of the phone. She knows he’s getting close and it turns her on even more to know that she knows that. 

“I’m going to come, too,” she says breathlessly. “Go faster, Grant. Come with me.” She speeds up her fingers and she hears the slap of skin coming through the phone.

As her whole body tightens, she moans loudly into the phone and hears Grant find his release, too.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he groans.

She giggles on her end, breathing deeply to get her heart rate back to normal.

“That was … fuck, Jemma.”

“I’ve never done that before,” she laughs, closing her eyes in contentment.

“Me either,” he says. He sounds drowsy, like he might fall asleep.

“What’s your favorite color, Grant?” she asks suddenly.

“Blue, what’s yours?” He answers just as quickly.

“Leopard print,” she says with a laugh.

“I’ll allow it,” he laughs. “How’d you get that scar on your lower back?”

“When I was a kid, I had scoliosis.”

“Oh, well you can’t really tell.”

“Yes, or my modeling days would be over,” she laughs.

“Don’t laugh,” he teases, and she knows he’s wearing his cocky grin, “you have a very nice ass.”

“And so do you,” she responds quickly, “doctor approved.”

“What about the scar on your elbow?” he asks.

“Funny story, actually …” she starts. They go back and forth like that for a while. Asking each other random questions and actually talking for once. Except the thing with Grant Ward is, you don’t know if you’re getting an honest answer. When that thought starts to cloud her mind, she tells him she’s tired and needs to go to bed.

“Sweet dreams, baby.”

“Good night, Grant.”

…

He gets home at lunchtime the next day and she races up to their suite to greet him. She barely lets him say two words before she pulls him into bed. After she’s been thoroughly fucked, she turns on her side to finally say hello.

“Hi,” she says with a mischievous smile.

“Hi,” he says, his satisfied expression matching her own. 

“How was your mission?”

“It was fine,” he says. “I missed you though.” He touches her chin.

“I think we established that last night,” she says, leaning in for a light kiss.

“I think we also established that you missed me, too?” he asks playfully.

“That we did,” she nods, looking away. “That we did.”

“I’ve been meaning to tell you – I talked to Whitehall finally,” Ward says.

“You really want to talk about him right now?” The mere mention of Whitehall is enough to pull her out of her post-coital bliss.

“Sorry,” he says, giving her a nervous peck on the lips. “We can talk about it later.”

She sighs. “Well now I want to know, what about?” she says, running her fingertips up and down his muscular arm.

“About you going back into the field.”

Her heart jumps and her hand clenches around his wrist. She knows right away that if she can get cleared for field work, they have a much better chance at finally making their escape.

“Well, finally,” she says. “What did he say?”

“He said he’d consider it once he talks to you. He probably thought I was being an overbearing boyfriend.”

Jemma rolls her eyes at him. He pulls her into his arms and wraps himself around her, trapping her in a kiss. She feels safe in his arms, and she’s come to find that just the smell of him makes her feel at ease. _Wait, when did that become a thing?_

“I hate to say this,” she pouts. “But I have to go back to work.”

He exaggerates a frown and gives her one last peck before letting her go. “Come home right at 5. Don’t stay late tonight.”

“I’ll try,” she says, as she gets dressed. She leans in for one last kiss and reflexively tells him she loves him before going out the door. _Wait, when did she start doing that?_

…

The next morning, Whitehall asks to see her. She makes her way up to his office and prepares herself to be interrogated by him in order to go back into the field.

“Dr. Simmons,” he says when his secretary lets her in. “Please, sit down.”

She sits across from him and is too nervous to say a word. He smiles at her and she tries to return it, but it feels more like she is grimacing in pain rather than looking delighted to be in his office.

“Is something wrong, Dr. Simmons?” he asks.

“No, nothing,” she says earnestly. “What can I do for you, sir?”

“Agent Ward says you prefer to work on a field team.” He sits back in his chair and observes her carefully. “Why haven’t you discussed this with me?”

“Dr. Whitehall, you know I am happy in the lab,” she says. “And I am very grateful for my promotion. However, I thought my interest in field work was on record. I shared as much with Sunil Bakshi when we went on the mission to retrieve Donnie Gill.”

He nods, but he looks like he is still evaluating her.

“I also met Agent Ward while working in the field,” she continues. “He of all people could vouch for my qualifications.”

“Yes, he filed a report when he first came back,” Whitehall says. “Is it true you came up with an antiserum for an alien virus in a matter of hours?”

She blushes. “To save my own life. One of my many accomplishments under pressure.”

“Good,” Whitehall says decisively. “I could use your expertise on a special project of mine.”

“The Faustus method, sir?” she asks, trying to mask her disdain.

“Oh, that you’ve already helped with, a great deal,” he says. She manages to keep up her mask. “This project is much more important.” 

“I’m intrigued,” she says with a smile.

“We’ve found a better way to weaponize the obelisk,” he says, smiling back.

…

Her meeting with Whitehall eats into her day significantly and she stays late in the lab to catch up on her work. She hasn’t been able to shake the nausea she was feeling in his office. He showed her a video from the attack on the U.N. – HYDRA agents claiming they were SHIELD and throwing devices that made people disintegrate within seconds. She tries to focus on the positive result from the meeting: Whitehall wants her at his side when he makes his next move and that might require leaving the HYDRA base.

Her phone starts to ring and she chastises herself for not letting Grant know she’d be late. _Wait, when did that become a thing?_

“Grant,” she breathes out when she answers the phone.

“Hi baby,” he says flirtatiously. “What are you wearing?”

“A … lab coat,” she playfully answers. It feels good to hear his voice and get her mind off her racing thoughts.

“Anything underneath it?”

“Of course, Grant, I’m still in the lab,” she giggles, wondering how he’s managing to make her weak in the knees with just his voice. Again.

“Isn’t it after 7 there? Don’t they ever let you go home?”

“Wait, what time zone are you in?” she asks, confused.

“Classified.”

“Ugh,” Jemma sighs. “I thought you would be home for at least 24 hours.”

“Well, you know if you get lonely you could always …”

“Yeah?” she asks flirtatiously, twirling her fingers in her hair and relaxing back into her chair. “What could I do?”

Grant clears his throat nervously. “Yeah so I’m actually standing right next to the A/C and I can’t hear you that well.”

Jemma about falls out of her chair. A/C? Her heart skips a beat and she knows what he means by using Skye’s old nickname for Coulson.

“But I just wanted to make sure you were OK,” he says quickly.

Her throat goes dry as she tries to think of something she could say in code that would be of any significance. But she wasn’t expecting this to ever happen and all she can say is, “Of course. Though I’ll feel better when you come home to me.”

“I love you,” he says.

“You, too.”

He hangs up. Her heart is still racing. Grant got nervous, he never sounds that nervous. She wonders if she was on speakerphone. _Oh dear god. What if Coulson heard her flirting with him?_ She’s mortified imagining it.

But Coulson of all people should recognize that she’s come a long way as an undercover agent. She’s just been doing what she has to do in order to survive. Barely anything she said to Grant was real. No, not Grant – _Ward_. She means Ward. _Bloody hell._


	15. One Last Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story will bump into canon season 2 from here on out :)

Ward apologizes profusely about their bad cell connection when he gets home early the next morning and she wonders again why he is acting so nervous around her.

“It’s fine,” she waves him off. “I need to get ready for work. Join me in the shower?”

When they’re under the spray, he looks at her with a big smile. It alarms her, so he touches her shoulder reassuringly.

“I gave Coulson a present and solved our Sunil Bakshi problem at the same time,” he explains.

“The fact you’re so happy about it kind of scares me.”

“Oh, they won’t kill him,” he says, as if that explains everything.

“Well, did you find anything else out?” she asks eagerly, changing the subject. Ward goes into detail about some sort of temple but she finds herself focusing more on her relief that she was not on speakerphone when Ward called her last night. Then she fills him in on Whitehall and what he told her about the obelisk.

“That’s great,” he says with moderate enthusiasm. “But whatever he’s planning, it’s big. And SHIELD is gearing up, too. You’re going to have to be really careful. Don’t just take the first opportunity to run. You have to think through all the variables.”

“Won’t you be there with me? If I go with Whitehall?”

“I don’t know,” Ward shrugs.

She furrows her brow. “Can you find out what they’re planning?”

“It sounds like it all leads back to the temple? I don’t know. But Skye’s father is involved now and they’re trying to find Raina, so that can only mean trouble.”

“Skye’s father?” she asks, shocked. He nods. “You haven’t mentioned him before.”

“Believe me, if I told you every single detail, we’d never be dry.” He points to the showerhead.

She nods but his omission makes her uneasy.

“Hey, I made you a promise,” he says, taking her hand. “And I intend to keep it.”

“I’m not going to find out you’ve been playing me this whole time?” she asks dryly. “That you worked all this up with Whitehall from the beginning?”

He looks completely thrown off. “You still don’t trust me?”

She gives him a look that says “of course not.”

He looks wounded and doesn’t say a word. He hesitates, turns toward the shower door to leave, then spins around and pulls her into a passionate kiss. She has whiplash from all the emotions she just saw him go through, but the only thing she can think of now is his mouth on hers.

He backs her up against the shower wall and she opens her legs wide to give him access. He runs his hand between her thighs, applying pressure just where she wants it. She’s about to take his cock into her hand when she hears the sound of his phone ringing on the bathroom counter. He puts his forehead against hers and sighs.

“Sorry,” he whispers. Then he slips out of the shower to take it. She washes her hair while she waits for him to come back.

“I have to go,” he says, poking his head in. “Raincheck?” He has a boyish smile on his face and she can’t help but smirk back at him.

“Be careful,” she tells him. It’s become her standard goodbye to her specialist not-boyfriend.

He closes the door and she tilts her head back to rinse her hair, but a few seconds later, he’s back in the shower and pulling her chin toward him. His kiss sets her body on fire and she feels it down to her toes.

He pulls back and she gapes at him. “You be careful, too,” he says. And he’s gone again. 

…

“We’ve had a lead,” Whitehall tells her excitedly when she’s called to his office that afternoon.

“Oh?” Jemma asks, worried he was going to be angry she hadn’t made any progress on the obelisk.

“Yes, Dr. Simmons. Pack your bags. Be ready to go at a moment’s notice.”

“Is that why Grant was sent out?” she asks him.

“He’s helping set up the pieces,” Whitehall says with a grin that makes her feel a bit nauseated.

Jemma nods. She wishes she had more information about where they were going. It must have something to do with the temple.

…

Jemma packs a go-bag that night with the hope that she won’t ever be back in the suite, or even the building. No, the entire city. She wants to get as far away from HYDRA as she can.

If she makes it through this mission. _When._ When she makes it through this mission and back to her team.

She suddenly worries what it will be like to go back to SHIELD. She didn’t leave Fitz on the best of terms and she can only imagine how much worse it will be when she tells him where she’s been and what she’s been doing. _And who she’s been doing it with._ She told him she was going to visit her parents … five months ago. She just hopes he’s gotten better in her absence.

The thought of being back in her lab is not as comforting a thought as she expected. Not only will she have to contend with Fitz, she imagines she will encounter a sort of PTSD from her work at HYDRA. The lab stopped feeling like her safe haven ever since she saw Agent 33. The only place she feels safe now is … with Ward. The thought appears and she shakes it out of her head. She’s confident that once she’s back with her team, the universe will align itself again and she’ll go back to hating him.

But as she gets ready for bed, a nagging feeling won’t go away. It started out as a cover, but what is it now? The fact is she doesn’t hate Grant Ward anymore. She looks forward to seeing him. Hell, she wishes he were with her right now. She likes how it feels to laugh with him freely, how he’s comforted her when she cries, how he’s insisted on waking her up at 5:30 a.m. every bloody day so he can help her get stronger. How he looks up at her when his mouth is between her legs, how she just can’t seem to touch him enough to get her fill.

She realizes she’s been brushing her teeth for way too long and her mouth is full of minty bubbles. She spits and splashes cold water on her face. She looks in the mirror and steels herself. Ward has insisted that she trust him but he hasn’t gotten her out of here yet. It’s going to come down to her in the end, she knows it, and she hopes Whitehall doesn’t have any surprises in store when they go to the temple.

She gets in bed, alone, and silently prays that Ward is OK. She falls into a restless sleep.

…

Ward wakes her up around 2:30 a.m. when he slips in behind her.

“Sorry,” he whispers. “Go back to sleep.” He pulls her against his chest and wraps his arms around her.

“Mmm,” she sighs contentedly, still half-asleep. “Where have you been?”

“Getting things ready for our mission,” he says. He kisses her on the neck. “Try not to react to this,” he whispers so softly she can barely hear him. Her whole body tenses. “But they have Skye.”

She fights her instincts to open her eyes, and tries to focus on her breathing. Her heart feels like it is beating out of her chest. Ward pulls her still closer.

“Don’t worry,” he whispers. “I have a plan.”

She nods her head and he plants more kisses around her ear. She has so many questions, and she can’t ask any of them right now. She considers hauling Ward into the shower, but she doesn’t want to blow their cover when she’s on the verge of finally escaping.

Eventually, she falls back to sleep in the comfort of Ward’s arms. She never could think of another place that made her feel more safe.

…

In the morning, she wakes to more kisses on her neck and she flips her body so she can bury her face in Ward’s chest. He laughs at her.

“It’s too early,” she mumbles.

“It’s 5:45,” he says. “I let you sleep in.”

She suddenly remembers what he told her about Skye in the middle of the night and she practically bolts out of bed.

“Whoa,” Ward laughs again. “You must be ready to get back into the field, huh?”

“I can’t wait!” she says, pushing off her covers. “We didn’t miss a page or anything, did we?” She checks her phone but there are no missed calls or texts.

“Nope,” Ward says, letting out a yawn.

“Are you packed?” she asks him, reaching her hand for the doorknob.

“Yep.”

“Let’s take a shower then,” she says. She yanks off her pajama top and throws it at him. They grin at each other.

“I’ll be right there,” he says.

She heads to the bathroom and gets the water going. She tries to sort her questions in her mind to figure out exactly what she needs to know going into the mission.

Ward slips into the shower behind her and puts his arms around her waist. He kisses her neck and she lazily reaches a hand back into his hair. They’ve been in this position before, and it didn’t go very far. His lips get close to her ear.

“I know we have a lot to talk about but this is the last chance we’ll get to do this,” he whispers.

Her body jerks and she whips around, putting her hands on his chest. “What do you mean?”

“You know Coulson will put me back in a cell, or worse,” he whispers. “The same goes for HYDRA.” He dips down to give her a peck on the lips.

“Are you still planning to run?”

“First, I’m going to make sure you and Skye are safe. Then, I’m going to run. I don’t have another choice.”

She gives him a knowing look and puts her ear to his chest, listening to his heart beat. The water runs down her back and over her bum. His hand follows the same trail and she squirms to his touch.

“This feels surreal,” he whispers. “I didn’t know how I was going to pull any of this off. We still have a lot to do. I know we’ve been in here longer than we planned, but now I can’t help feeling like I need more time.”

She looks up at him with a sad smile. “Let’s make the most of what’s left then.”

He smiles back and puts his hands fully under her ass to lift her up against the wall. She yelps in surprise and they laugh. He kisses her passionately and makes a trail from her lips to her neck. He slots his knee between her legs to balance her better and free up one of his hands. It goes straight to her clit, making her moan.

“I’ll miss hearing that,” he whispers in her ear.

He manages to lean down enough to suck her breast into his mouth, licking and biting her nipples. She remembers to use her limbs again and runs her hands over his broad shoulders, gripping any part of his skin that she can reach.

“I’ll miss feeling like this,” she moans. She grinds down onto his leg, feeling the pleasant friction along all of her erogenous zones at once. Her head spins as she climaxes easily from his hands and his mouth on her.

“Fuck, Jemma,” he whispers. She opens her eyes and finds him staring at her intensely. She blushes.

“You’re so beautiful,” he says, lowering his leg and helping her slide back down to the floor. He puts his hands in her hair and pulls her into a kiss. His tongue flicks into her mouth and she pushes her hips into his to let him know she’s ready for more. He kisses down her neck and keeps his lips there somehow as he turns her slowly toward the shower wall. She puts her hands up against it and pushes her bum out, straight into him.

He aligns his hips and pushes slowly into her from behind. She cries out from the feeling. He hasn’t filled her up this much since the first time they had sex. One of his hands teases her breasts as he slowly eases her into the wall and back off of it. She presses into the cool tile and it’s a stark contrast to his warm body along her back. The sensation is making her body shudder.

“Is this OK?” he asks her.

She throws her arm back to pull him into her. “Yes, yes, keep going,” she moans.

He picks up the pace, his hips slapping into her with each thrust. She’s mildly aware that she’s making porn star noises – which she always thought sounded over the top, in her limited knowledge of porn – but knowing this is the last time with Ward makes all her senses feel heightened and she’s savoring every moment of pleasure.

“Oh yes, yes, yes,” she cries.

He alternates his strokes to hit her in different places and when his hand skims down her body to press on her clit, she’s done for. She comes harder than she ever has, her whole body shaking. He’s not far behind, pulling out and releasing himself toward the shower drain.

She can barely hold herself up against the wall; her legs feel like jelly. Ward’s arms wrap around her and turn her into the shower spray, rinsing her off delicately. He runs soapy hands along her body and she looks up at him, eyes glazed, and smiles.

“You’re going to need some coffee before we head out,” he says, kissing her forehead.

“I might have to go back to bed,” she says dreamily.

“I’ll remind you that if you don’t come on this mission, you won’t be getting out of here today.”

She opens her eyes wide.

He laughs at her, incredulous. “Did you forget?!”

She nods and bursts into laughter.

“Wow,” he comments, looking smug. “I mean, I thought it was good for me but it was _really_ good for you.”

She nods again vigorously and they laugh even more. Then she grimaces, reality setting in again. “Even though –” she starts. All the questions she woke up with are suddenly back in her head.

He sighs, giving her a knowing look. “I was sent to look for Raina in Vancouver and Skye was there, too,” Ward whispers. “Raina insisted we bring Skye back here to help Whitehall find the temple. There wasn’t anything I could do.”

She nods, trying to be impassive about whether she truly believes him. “Is Skye OK?”

“She will be when her father gets here,” he says. “Raina told me about Cal a long time ago. He has some sort of super strength serum but I think it messed with his head. He’s a little out there.”

“Poor Skye,” Jemma mumbles. “So why exactly is her father working for Whitehall?”

“I’m not sure. But I can guess it has something to do with the temple.”

“I hope Coulson can put all the pieces together,” she says, trying to sort through all of the information.

“Before Whitehall does,” Ward says uneasily. “He hasn’t figured out yet that Cal is Skye’s father.”

“Why wouldn’t Cal tell him that?”

“I don’t know. Cal’s been helping him with the obelisk and the temple. He went out on a mission right before I did but he hasn’t come back yet. Raina said he’d want Skye to go to the temple with us.”

“I’m beginning to think I should stay behind on this mission, but it’s not like I can back out now." She and Ward exchange worried looks. “Anything else I need to know?”

“Remember your training,” he says, putting his hand on her hip. “Don’t take the first opportunity to run away, especially since there will be a lot of people with guns running around.” She gives him a quick peck on the lips, while she still can.

He puts his forehead on hers. “If we get separated, call me if you need me. You are my first priority.”

“What about Skye?” she whispers.

He kisses her again, this time deeply. It feels like a goodbye kiss. “ _You_ are my first priority,” he repeats.


	16. Don't Call Me Angel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're so close to the end! Thanks everyone for reading this far :)

Jemma and Ward board a quinjet together at half past 7 with no idea of where they are going. Jemma is disappointed that Skye isn’t on board with them, but there are a few other planes leaving at the same time and she figures Skye must be on one of those.

Jemma tries not to look surprised when Ward takes her hand while they’re lifting off. “Remember that time I jumped out of a plane for you?” he asks, kissing her knuckles.

“How could I forget?” she laughs.

He uses his other hand to touch her cheek lightly. “I wanted to do this then,” he whispers, before drawing her in for a chaste kiss. They are strapped in alongside enemy agents, after all.

“You did?” she asks incredulously.

He nods and brings her hand up for another light kiss. “And many other times,” he answers, looking at her intently.

She’s left gob smacked by his confession, but she’s not sure whether he said that just to maintain their cover for a little longer or because he means it. It was probably obvious that she had a crush on him while they were on the Bus, and she seems to remember him encouraging it quite shamelessly. When he betrayed the team, those feelings easily went away, never to return. _Until now._

But this whole time they’ve been undercover, things have been different. _They’ve_ been different. They’re not the same people they were on the Bus. She hopes she really has gotten to know the real Grant Ward. She would be disappointed to find out that he played her once again.

She realizes he is still staring at her so she replies, “me too.” Her answer coaxes a rare, genuine smile out of him.

They land two hours later in San Juan, Puerto Rico. SUVs with bullet-proof windows take them to Ponce de Leon Theater, where Dr. Whitehall greets them.

“It’s an exciting day,” he says. “Are you ready to unlock the power of the obelisk?” They nod. 

“Where do you want us, sir?” Jemma asks.

“They’ll need your help in there with the plasma drill, Dr. Simmons,” he says, gesturing to the next room. “Agent Ward, I have a different task for you.”

Whitehall steers Ward down a hallway. Ward glances back at her and mouths, “be careful.”

She goes through a set of double doors to a large room. A crew is setting up the drill in the center. She looks around, hoping to see Skye but she’s met instead by Raina’s gaze. Raina crosses the room quickly.

“Dr. Simmons?” she asks, surprised.

“Dr. Whitehall said you needed help?” Jemma asks.

Raina looks confused. “I thought you worked for SHIELD?”

“I’m loyal to HYDRA.”

“I thought you would be dead, after I –”

The pieces fall together. Somehow, Raina is the one who outed her as the mole. Why else would this woman, who she barely knows, be so surprised to see her?

“So it was you?” Jemma says with a HYDRA-approved scowl. “Well, your little plan didn’t work. I’ve proven my loyalty. I’d like to see you prove yours. Let’s see about this plasma drill, shall we?”

Jemma takes control of the room and even though she tries to create some obstacles to slow HYDRA down, before long the plasma drill is beaming down toward the underground temple.

A man comes in about 15 minutes later and motions for Jemma and Raina to follow him. They go out into the foyer, where Ward and an older, brown-haired man are standing, surrounded by HYDRA agents in tactical gear. Ward gives her a small smile from across the room and she goes to stand next to him. Their hands barely touch.

Raina follows her and addresses the room, “is there a problem?” Ward nods toward Whitehall, who is entering from the other side with a smug expression.

“Well, well,” he says. “We’re here today in part because of the four of you.” Jemma regrets being included in such nefarious company, but manages to return Whitehall’s creepy smile anyway.

He looks at her first. “You’ve been an asset in so many ways, even bringing back our top agent.” Next, he addresses Ward. “You delivered Raina as you promised.” He then turns to Raina, “I had my initial doubts about you, young lady, but you are slowly earning my trust.”

He turns to the brown-haired man. “And your knowledge of the diviner has led us to this historic moment.” _That must be Skye’s dad, Cal._ “For that, I offer my gratitude. I have just one question: How does she fit in?”

Jemma’s mouth drops open when Skye is brought into the room by a guard. Skye looks at her, surprised, before surveying the rest of the room.

“We need her to get into the temple,” Raina explains.

“Which you haven’t explained,” Whitehall says. “But I have a theory about that.” He snaps his fingers and Agent May walks into the room carrying a steel case. _But how could that be?_ Jemma notices the same burn that Agent 33 had on her face and she realizes it is not May. They don’t carry themselves the same way. Agent 33 pops the lid of the case open to show the obelisk inside.

“I’d like you to pick it up,” Whitehall tells Skye.

Jemma’s eyes widen and she feels a slight touch from Ward that signals to her that she should stay put. But Jemma has seen firsthand what happens when people touch that evil thing. She couldn’t bear to be so close to reuniting with Skye only to watch her die right in front of her.

“You first,” Skye says cockily. The guard behind Skye pulls out a gun and points it at her. Skye looks over at Jemma, then her father. Cal gives her a nod. Something about his confidence makes Jemma think Skye will be OK. _But how is that possible?_

Skye abruptly reaches over and picks up the obelisk with her right hand. It glows to her touch, a light emanating from all sides. Strange symbols emerge with the light. Skye looks just as surprised as everyone else that she isn’t dead, and moves quickly to use her immunity to her advantage.

She turns and presses the obelisk into the nearest guard’s neck. Cal attacks a split second later, stabbing a different guard. Ward pushes Jemma behind him and pulls his gun on the pair of guards nearest them. Raina looks confused and runs out of the way.

It’s a standoff. Ward’s the only one on their side with a gun, and they are outnumbered 3 to 1 with guns pointed at them from all sides. Agent 33 is smugly pointing hers right at Jemma’s head.

Whitehall throws Ward and Jemma a scowl and steps closer to Skye to say menacingly, “I hope you’re as special as your mother.”

Jemma’s clearly missed a lot of what’s been going on in Skye’s life. Out of the corner of her eye, Jemma sees Raina take the obelisk back from Skye. A guard grabs Ward’s gun and she fears the worst.

“I’ll confess, I didn’t recognize you when you first barged into my office,” Whitehall addresses Cal.

“If my daughter wasn’t here, I would tear you and your men to pieces,” Cal says, and Jemma thinks he sounds more intimidating than he looks.

“Well, then, I’ll add that to the number of reasons that I’m glad she’s here,” Whitehall says smugly. 

He turns toward Jemma and Ward. He looks calm and is half smiling at them. “You two are the pieces of the puzzle that I still can’t decipher,” he says. “That trick you tried to pull at Dominic’s was all too transparent. But I have a feeling that, in time, I can make you comply.”

…

As guards tie Jemma and Ward into chairs next to each other in what seems to be an industrial kitchen, it suddenly dawns on her that Ward was, indeed, _not_ working with Whitehall to play her. She’d been half expecting Ward to double cross her this whole time, and it is actually more unsettling that he may have been honest about his intentions all along. Not completely honest, she’s quite sure of that. But back in the foyer, he tried to protect her. At one point, he stood between her and a bullet.

It doesn’t exactly make him her knight in shining armor, but she has the same feeling now – even as she is being tied up – that she has when she’s in bed with Ward: she feels safe. And that’s when the next realization dawns on her: she trusts him. She trusts him to keep her safe. And there’s another new feeling blossoming when it comes to Grant Ward: she wants him to be safe, too. Watching the guards manhandle him is making her heart beat faster, so she turns her attention to her _real_ friend across the room. 

Skye is in a chair and her father’s unconscious on the floor. She tries asking Skye if she’s alright and if her father is still breathing, but Agent 33 threatens to shoot her so she decides to stay quiet for now. Ward, however, is decidedly not.

“The woman you look like, Agent May? I knew her. How did you end up with her face?” Ward asks Agent 33.

“Serving Dr. Whitehall,” she responds, like the most loyal of soldiers.

“That’s got to be an interesting story. Doesn’t it bother you?”

Jemma finds she enjoys watching Ward work, when he’s not aiming his cocky attitude at her or her team.

“I didn’t have a purpose before,” Agent 33 responds. “I was lost. Now I’m happy to comply.”

“So you’re loyal to HYDRA?”

“I’m loyal to Dr. Whitehall.”

“We can help you, Agent 33,” Jemma chimes in. “We can get you out of here, help you break the compulsion.”

“I’m loyal to Dr. Whitehall,” Agent 33 repeats.

“There was a guy I used to be loyal to,” Ward says. “He went completely insane.” Jemma stifles a surprised laugh. It’s one of the few bad things she’s ever heard him say about John Garrett.

“Not another word,” Agent 33 threatens.

“Happy to comply,” Ward says ironically. 

Jemma hopes that SHIELD is on their way. With Skye here, she knows Coulson isn’t far behind. She tries not to feel bitter about the lengths Coulson would go to for Skye but not for her. However, she wouldn’t trade places with Skye for the world. She can’t imagine how Skye’s feeling right now. 

The room is quiet until Cal wakes up. Whitehall enters soon after and when Cal goes to attack him, Whitehall uses a remote control to send an electric current through his body. She’s able to make out a sort of inhibitor on Cal’s neck.

While everyone is distracted by Skye and Cal, Ward turns to her. “You OK?” he asks.

“I’m worried about Skye,” she says, not looking at him, trying to make out what Whitehall is saying.

“And I’m worried about you,” he tells her.

She snaps her attention back to him, a bit surprised. “You don’t have to keep up the act any longer, Ward. We’ve been made. You don't have to pretend to be my boyfriend anymore.”

Before he can respond, they hear an explosion on the property followed by gun shots. The Cavalry must be here. Whitehall and his team rush off, leaving them with only one guard.

“Skye, how is your father?” Jemma calls across the room.

“Who cares?” she responds. “Simmons, how are you? I’ve been so worried about you!”

“I’m fine,” she says. Ward looks at her and gives her a sad smile. She looks at him, confused.

“I’m so sorry we couldn’t get you out sooner,” Skye says. “But we’re going to get out of here. I promise.”

“Shut up before I shut you up,” the guard finally says.

“Hey,” Ward says to the guard after another explosion. “Hear that? They’re coming for us. I saw how many guys you have on your side. You are sorely outnumbered, my friend. Tell you what. Let me go now. I’ll tell them to take it easy on you. Maybe cut off an ear, pop an eye.”

“I said shut up!”

“Just trying to be helpful. I’m a lot nicer than he’s gonna be.”

Cal sneaks up behind the guard and seemingly severs his spinal column with his bare hands. Jemma is horrified by his display of super strength and guesses that is why Skye appeared so unfeeling about finally meeting her father.

“You’re welcome,” Ward says to him. “Now, let’s get out of here.”

“Yeah, me too. Come on!” Skye shouts.

“It’s safer here,” Cal says with an ominous look. “And I’m about to do something to Whitehall. I don’t want you to see me like that.”

“I don’t mind. Seeing,” Ward pipes up. “Hell, I’m happy to help.”

“No,” Cal says with a wicked grin. “I get to do this myself.”

“What?” Skye shouts. “Hey!”

Cal leaves the room and Jemma shares an exasperated look with Ward. But since there’s no longer a guard, Ward makes quick work of getting out of his restraints. He takes a knife off the guard’s body and cuts Jemma free, as well.

He hands the knife to her so she can free Skye and goes to assess the threats outside the door. Jemma runs to Skye, cuts her free and pulls her into a big hug. Skye seems distracted. She pulls away from Jemma and puts her hands on Jemma’s forearms.

“I’m going to get you out of here,” she whispers. Jemma looks at her, confused.

Skye smiles before creeping across the room and picking up the guard’s gun. She points it at Ward and Jemma screams.


	17. Break Free

“No, Skye! Don’t!” Jemma yells. Skye is distracted by her cries and Ward knocks the gun out of her hand easily. “What are you doing, Skye?” she shouts.

Ward picks up the gun and points it at Skye. “Grant, put that down!” she scolds.

“I don’t know what’s going on!” he says defensively, but he lowers it anyway. “I’m on your side; why did you try to shoot me?”

“You might have Jemma fooled, but I know who you are, Ward.”

“No,” Jemma scoffs, “you don’t.”

Gun shots echo down the hall. Skye whips her head and looks at Jemma like she’s been betrayed. “Jemma, we need to get out of here and far, far away from Ward.”

“He’s been helping me, Skye,” Jemma tries to explain.

“Has he been? Because I heard he went into HYDRA two months ago to get you out and looks like he’s only gotten you to do more of Whitehall’s dirty work.”

“It wasn’t like that,” Jemma says weakly. “We did what we had to do.”

“Like pretend to be fucking?” Skye asks crudely. “Because I heard that, too. You should be ashamed of yourself, Ward. I’m not going to let you touch her again.”

Ward looks over at Jemma, clearly hurt and trying hard to hide it. Jemma doesn’t know what to say.

“Are you going to let us go, Ward?” Skye pushes. “Or are you going to hand us back over to Whitehall?”

“I would never …” Ward starts.

“Then get out of the way!” Skye barks.

Ward moves out of the doorway, and Skye walks slowly backwards to grab Jemma’s hand and pull her into the hallway. Skye is watching Ward the whole time, but so is Jemma. The looks on the women’s faces are very different.

Skye holds up the knife that Jemma used to untie them and slowly peeks into the hall to see if it’s clear. “C’mon,” she whispers, tugging on Jemma.

“I want to say goodbye,” Jemma says abruptly.

“What?” Skye asks.

“To Ward. I want to say goodbye.”

Skye looks at her like she’s grown three heads in the last 30 seconds. “ _Why?_ ”

“Like I said, he helped me,” Jemma explains, again sounding weaker than she’d like.

Skye is still shocked, but she nods. “I’ll be right out here,” she says. She slips into an alcove in the hallway to keep an eye out for HYDRA agents.

Jemma turns to Ward. _Grant._ He looks a bit like a wounded puppy. She knows no one will believe her, but she doesn’t think for a second that he would hurt her or try to take her back to Whitehall _. She has before, but not now._ Her eyes are getting blurry from tears as she organizes all the things she wants to say to him.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Grant says soothingly. He pulls her into his arms and holds her close. She wraps herself around him for what will likely be the last time.

“I know it was all just an act for you,” Grant whispers in her ear, “but I really did fall for you. I’m in love with you, so in love with you that I know I need to let you go.”

She puts her hands to his cheeks so she can pull him to her and kiss him passionately. With words failing her, it’s all she can think to do. In the background, she can hear Skye in the hall groaning, “what are you _doing_?!”

He pulls away too soon. She opens her eyes when he puts his forehead to hers. “I love you,” he says again, a smile brightening up his whole face. And then it’s gone, and she knows he is about to run. “Goodbye, Jemma,” he says before letting her go.

Her whole body feels numb and cold without his body heat against her. She watches him sprint across the hall and into a stairwell. She whips her head to see Skye coming back into the room, likely shocked that she just saw the two of them kissing and also irritated that Jemma still hasn’t moved a muscle.

“Jemma, let’s go!” she orders.

Jemma’s body moves toward the stairwell before she even realizes she’s made up her mind.

“I’m sorry, Skye,” she says spinning to open the door with her bum so she can look Skye in the eye.

“Jemma, what are you–?”

“I love him,” she says confidently. She’s surprised by her own confidence, because she hadn’t acknowledged until this very moment how she felt. It makes her feel brave, and maybe a little stupid. Her heart is pushing her to follow him, despite what it will mean. Consequences be damned, she doesn’t have time to follow both her head and her heart. “Help Agent 33, she’s brainwashed. And tell Fitz I’m sorry.”

The door slams shut behind her. Gun shots are still ringing out from different directions in the building. She practically jumps down the flight of stairs so she can try to catch up to Grant.

“Grant!” she calls down the center of the stairwell, hoping that doesn’t send any HYDRA or SHIELD agents running her way.

“Jemma?” she hears him call back from down below.

She races down as he races up. They meet in the middle, the third floor.

“I love you, too,” she blurts out.

“What?” he asks, panting.

“I want to be with you,” she says, taking his hand in hers. “So we better get going.”

He looks at her, dazed and confused. Like he’s been punched in the gut, only this time it’s in a good way.

“But … SHIELD?” he stammers.

“I’m sure they’ve been doing fine without me,” she says, bringing his palm to her lips for a light kiss. “But I won’t be fine without you.”

She intertwines his fingers in hers and pulls him down the stairs with her. “We’re going to have SHIELD and HYDRA after us now. We better get moving.”

They come out of the stairwell on the south side of the building and run about five blocks through back alleys until they come across a car they can hotwire. It’s a classic convertible that reminds them both of Lola. They share a smile and climb in.

“You don’t think this will draw too much attention?” Jemma asks as Grant starts the car.

“I think we deserve to have a little fun before we die,” he grins at her mischievously.

As the engine revs, she pulls him to her for a quick kiss. “Another thing to love about you.”

“More than my abs?”

“Hmm, those are nice, too.”

They take another second to stare at each other with big, dopey smiles – the ones they faked for so long, now real – before Grant puts the car in drive.

“Where to?” he asks as he turns onto a busy street in San Juan.

Jemma sticks her hand out the window and waves it in the breeze.

“Anywhere we can be free,” she says with a smile, truly feeling that way. She is finally free from HYDRA, and she is done with the never-ending cycle of crises she dealt with at SHIELD. She wants this.

Sure, she’s going to miss her team. She’ll always miss being in the lab with Fitz, but she can accept _that_ Fitz is gone now. And so is _that_ Jemma. She doesn’t feel like the same Jemma she was on the Bus when she formed bonds with Coulson, May and Skye. And this definitely isn’t the same Grant Ward she knew then; she likes him better now.

“The docks?” she asks, seeing a sign for the marina.

“Yes, smart,” he says.

“They do say I’m a genius.”

Grant parks the convertible in front of a long line of yachts. Though they rolled up in style, they are disheveled from the events of the day and no doubt someone will notice they are out of place.

“Pick one,” Grant says as they get out of the car. “I have a dropbox in Caracas. From there, we can go anywhere.”

“Caracas, Venezuela?" she asks, taking his hand. 

“Yeah. Maybe we can revisit that temple in Peru after?”

“Maybe I’ll just go back with the team.” She jokingly takes a step back toward the car.

“OK, not Peru,” he says, pulling her toward him and wrapping his arms around her waist.

“I guess that’s fine, as long as I’m with you,” she says, and they both smile at the cheesiness.

He leans down and kisses her and she’s not surprised to register that it feels right. She doesn’t feel guilty. She doesn’t have doubts in the back of her mind. She knows that he’ll keep her safe. She can feel that he loves her. It radiates through her body and her love flows back into him.

“Loverboy,” she says when they pull back for air.

“What?” he laughs.

“That’s the yacht we should take: Loverboy.”

He scans the marina and sees it. It’s not too big, not too small. He can tell it doesn’t get much use, which means it probably won’t be reported stolen right away.

“Did you just pick the one with the most ridiculous name?” he asks.

“Kinda,” she admits with a laugh.

When they’re about 20 kilometers off the coast – and while she’s riding him in the captain’s chair, moaning in his ear and feeling absolutely certain she made the right choice – an earthquake hits the island. Jemma wonders aloud if it had anything to do with the temple that both HYDRA and SHIELD were looking for.

“Not our problem anymore,” Ward says with a shrug.

She smiles at him. He finally looks like the weight of the world is off his shoulders. And she feels that way, too. She tilts her head back and takes in the smell of the sea, the sun on her skin and the wind in her hair.

They’re free.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that’s it! Thank you SO MUCH for reading! I really, really enjoyed writing this for you. I have ideas for a sequel where Jemma and Grant meet back up with Coulson during the “Real SHIELD” debacle. Perhaps from Grant’s perspective. If there’s anything you want to see in that or if you have any unanswered questions, let me know in the comments and I can write it in!


End file.
